скачать книгу бесплатно
"Black hair, pointed face, tall and serious looking. A handsome man."
"Anything else?"
"Only family stories left, are you interested?"
"He was very kind, Mr. Cochrane. And patient. I bid you good day." Mason held out his hand to the old doorman and, taking his hat, left the room.
"You didn't tell me how the coffee was!"
"Hot, Mr. Cochrane.".
A taxi ride
He walked out of the Perkins' building and felt more tired than ever. The accumulating questions weighed heavy in his notebook. His sleepy, tired eyes, bothered by the light, were slits, his temples throbbed so much that if they didn't stop soon he might not be able to take off his hat. Instead of going to the car, he stopped a taxi. He told the driver his destination and said to take it easy, let him choose the route. An unusual phrase to say to someone who makes money on the time he takes to do his job.
Stone finished transcribing Mr Cochrane's words and dozed off. Not even the noise of rush hour, the driver's bad driving and the rancid smell of the interior disturbed his sleep.
The company where Elizabeth worked as a secretary, Lloyd & Wagon's, was located in the Bronx. The underground from her home took about an hour, and who knows how many people had seen her, noticed her, desired her in the battered and dilapidated carriages she took every day. Perhaps the girl had met her murderer there, perhaps she had been observed, watched, followed once she got off at the stop. Maybe they had started chatting with a trivial excuse, maybe he had picked up her handkerchief and offered her a cup of coffee. Maybe they had become friends.
The image of Elizabeth appeared in front of him. She was still alive: her pink cheeks, her bright eyes, her sincere smile. When the girl peeped into his dream, the detective woke up, looked out of the window and tried to figure out where she was. The traffic had softened the taxi driver's driving. At that speed they would be there in about ten minutes.
"Big traffic, mister," he justified himself.
"Never mind." Mason craned his neck and read the nameplate on the dashboard. "Tim...I told her not to rush."
"Sure...sure! patience is a great virtue! If everyone thought like her!"
"You'd be a millionaire, Tim!"
"Sure, sure! Are you from New York, mister?"
"Florida adopted me when I married my wife."
"She's lost the accent a bit, though!"
"Not only that, Tim."
"You said it, mister."
Tim was a big guy with full cheeks, muscular arms and a wide waist. Judging by the colour of his sparse, yellow teeth, he was an avid tobacco chewer.
"How are you finding the Sunshine Cab, Tim?"
"Huh?!"
"What?"
"Forgive me: that's not a question I get asked often. I'd say I'm fine. In the two years I've been there, there have never been any problems."
"Is the climate good?"
"The good thing about this job, coach, is that you don't have to agree with anyone and as long as you're happy with yourself you're a lucky man. Of course, every now and then we get a few nutcases up here..."
"What about colleagues?"
"What's with all the questions, man?"
"I like to get to know the people I travel with. I love your company, it's my favourite one. I know all the Sunshine taxi drivers now!"
"Ah, I know who you are! You could have told me right away! Carl and Peter talk about her all the time!" Mason knew that Tim the taxi driver was lying. We always tend to agree with someone who is disturbing us, who is strange to the point of frightening us, someone whose back we are turning and whose movements we can't keep an eye on.
"And Sam, how is he? I haven't had a run in with him in a while."
"Look, mister, I don't want any trouble," gone was the high jester's voice and the talkative manner, Tim had become a bundle of nerves.
"And you won't have any, but try to keep your eyes on the road. That's a good boy." Mason had moved closer to Tim's seat and was now speaking quietly.
"Who are you?"
"I'm a guy who takes corners better than you do."
"I don't know anything about Sam."
"I just want you to tell me what he's like. You work at Sunshine enough to know him."
"He was ok"
"Try to be a little more forthcoming, mate." Tim stopped chewing the dark mush, wiped his lips with his free hand and swallowed. He hadn't dared roll down his window to spit out the excess saliva. Mason thought that had been a very bitter pill to swallow.
"None of us have ever had a problem with Sam. He's not a chatterbox, he just gets on with it. He worked a lot of overtime and covered a lot of people's shifts. He did it on the side. The pay isn't much but it's enough for me, you know, I don't have anyone..."
"Let's save the story of your life for the second date, shall we?"
"Yes, sir. Excuse me."
"What did he do when he got off work?"
"When he got off, he always went straight home. Is it true what they say, the things he did to his wife?"
"What do they say?"
"Well, that's why he ran away, isn't it?"
"Was there anywhere he used to hang out with you colleagues, just to take the stress off work, have a drink and a cigarette? A bar, for example?"
"Dude that's against the law!"
"Yeah, I got the word, but you know what? I don't believe in rumours. How about you, Tim?"
"No, sir."
"Then we get along great. I love MaC's. It's located in Jersey, do you know it?"
"No, mister."
"It's not bad, but don't order cognac: the real thing ran out over a year ago. Now it's just fuel and cough syrup. What do you recommend?"
"Tennant's. It's by the harbour, on the Hudson, I don't know if you know..."
"Clear."
"He wasn't a regular, he only came in from time to time and never stayed too long, he didn't drink or smoke. We used to drag him along. He wasn't a man of many words."
"What's the codeword?"
"What? Ah, Tammany."
"How much do I owe you for the ride, Tim?" Mason caught a glimpse of the Lloyd & Wagon's sign and was about to ask him to stop.
"Compliments of the company, mister," he said, relieved that that service was coming to an end.
"Take five dollars for the chat." Stone extended the money over Tim's shoulder, after he had pulled over, and got out. He crossed the street and reached the entrance to Lloyd & Wagon's. It was a low, two-storey building.
He was greeted on the threshold by a frantic Andrew Lloyd. The large windows on the first floor had announced Mason as having just stepped out of the taxi.
Stone advanced through the offices without waiting for his client, his hands buried in his raincoat, his gaze vaguely distracted as Lloyd entered his field of vision. Mason found him funny and more awkward than when he had first met him: he hopped around him, industrious as a bee, never ceasing to ask how the investigation was going, that he shouldn't bother so much but that he could contact him by phone. Mason Stone knew his business well enough to realise that Elizabeth's former employer was under intense stress. He studied the place, the environment, the atmosphere that Elizabeth Perkins had experienced while she was alive.
He found it cosy, not particularly baroque. Partly sad. As they passed by, the heads of the employees had popped out of their paperwork and loculi like springs from a broken clock.
Unfortunately, the visit proved fruitless.
He was able to inspect the girl's desk, although Matthews' team had already taken away all the interesting items. Except for a few items of stationery, the drawers were empty. On the table there was only a picture of her with Samuel. She asked Lloyd if she could keep it so that she would have no difficulty in recognising the man if she came across him. The department had not yet released the sketch. Maybe Lloyd had been right after all. Matthews and his people weren't losing any sleep over the girl.
As the boss's personal assistant, Elizabeth had few opportunities for dialogue with her colleagues. Everyone, however, thought she was a smart woman. She had not seemed strange to anyone in the last week, some said they had not noticed, others did not remember. Only one employee, Martha, Wagon's secretary, said that on a couple of occasions her eyes and nose had seemed red. She told Mason that she had let it go, believing it to be just a seasonal cold. She herself had had a fever the week before.
Mason avoided Andrew Lloyd's questions about her progress by asking if he could make a phone call. As long as he was on the suspect list, the fewer details he knew the less he could get in his way. Lloyd offered him the phone installed in his office, as if relieved that it was out of sight. After a few seconds, the switchboard connected him. April answered at the same time that Mason was pushing Lloyd away with his eyes. The man closed the door behind him.
"Stone, private investigation. Good evening, this is April."
"Mason."
"Ah, boss!"
"What are you still doing there?"
"I was closing up. How's it going?"
"Before you go, have there been any phone calls for me, any messages?"
"Captain Martelli has been looking for you."
"Splendid. What did he want?"
"He wanted to talk to you. When I told him you weren't there he seemed upset."
"I can understand that. The man is crazy about me. What time is he picking me up for the dance?"
"He said to stop meddling in the Perkins case. If you keep it up, he's going to put you in the slammer."
"Did you thank him for me?"
"What kind of case are you on, boss?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out, April. Be careful going home."
"You want me to wait for you? I can stay if you need me to."
"Go ahead, thanks. I'll stop by the office tonight. I think I can manage on my own with the coffee."
"I'll make some before I go."
Non-stop
Elizabeth's train was the 19:37 to Manhattan, from Pelham Parkway to Bleecker Street Martha had been very thorough. Every night, except on Thursdays when the office closed in the early afternoon, she and Elizabeth walked a little way together, a couple of blocks, then Martha took Allerton ave., flanking Bronx Park, while Elizabeth continued to the underground.
Mason thought the station would be crowded, but instead there were only thirty or so people on the platform, mostly middle-aged housewives and workers in their stained overalls, a few gentlemen hooded up to their chins, their wristwatches under their noses, checking the time, and kids who looked like emperors of the world.
They were Elizabeth's people, the ones who crowned her every day.
With whom had she exchanged a few words? With whom had she shared a smile? Who had given up their seat to her? Who had been fascinated by her beauty, who had been enraptured by her gentle ways?
There was no way a girl like that could go unnoticed, he himself had not been able to escape her charms.
After the arrival of the train, Mason let all the passengers’ parade before boarding: habits had to manifest themselves without his presence altering them.
He stayed out of the way for the entire journey, holding on to the handles. The roll of the journey would certainly have knocked him out if he had leaned over. None of the passengers aroused his suspicions: with few exceptions, no one paid any attention to him. A train full of spirits invisible to each other. The day had extinguished sociability. Only the young people still had the energy for the hubbub. Perhaps it was age, perhaps it was life. There were a couple of squabbles over unused seats and one push too many, but all you could get out of it was frustration. People did not understand each other and had no intention of trying to do so. Individuals only a few palms apart were miles apart. Being born and dying alone was part of existence. Living alone was a choice.
He thought not of himself but of Elizabeth. None of the people he had listened to had yet been able to tell him anything useful or meaningful, anything personal to help him enter his world, to see the hidden threads behind the curtain. Perhaps he had not asked the right questions. Perhaps he had not asked the right people. Samuel Perkins must have been one of them.
"How much longer are you going to stare at me, soldier boy?"
A guy with a neck set in broad docker shoulders had approached him from the back of the carriage, now only half full.
"My mistake, mate." Mason still towered over him by a hat. It wasn't him his attention had been on for the last five minutes but a petty thief just behind whom he'd pinched trying to lighten an old lady's purse. He had managed to dissuade him without approaching her with his gaze.
"I don't know what to do with your apology."
"I didn't apologise."
