"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."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"I wouldn't dare."
"What's your stop?"
"I live here, man. The third seat on the right is my bedroom. The fifth one on the left is where I relax on hard days. You're standing with your feet in my toilet right now, just for the record."
The man went right up to his nose. He smelled of sweat and sardines and the impetus with which he spoke made him spit.
"You think you're funny, soldier boy? I'll give you a pass on being a comedian."
"I'll give it a rest, thanks. I wouldn't want any of your syllables to end up in my mouth."
"You're good with words, let's see how good you are with actions." He was well placed, just wide enough to fill the space between himself and the corridor. Mason could have done a number of things to him: some would have interfered with his ability to walk, others would have made him forgetful.
"Sorry, mate. Here, here's to me." Mason handed him a note and a smile. He still remembered how to do it. He wanted to get back to the car, stop by the office, maybe get a few hours' sleep. There was no time to slaughter the brawlers. First duty, then pleasure.
The astonished man took the money, stuffed it in his pocket and walked away without ceasing to look at him in puzzlement.
A number of people came down to Bleecker St, including the pickpocket who slipped through the crowd and disappeared before Mason Stone could see what direction he had taken. He had missed him like a rookie.
He continued out of the station. From there to where he had left the car was a couple of blocks. A few young men in suits hurried to the party they'd been talking about nonstop the whole way; a woman and her little girl went to the charity event at their parish, even though the girl didn't want to and her shoes hurt; a hooded man scurried off, muttering and running over the man in front of him. Mason walked a short distance down the street, following the quarrel of two lovers from a distance and ahead of a woman carrying shopping bags.
He had an uncomfortable feeling about him. He had had it ever since he got off the train. The boyfriends turned the corner and continued to argue about how to get permission from their parents. Mason, however, crossed the street. Something was wrong. His bones were telling him. When he reached the opposite pavement, he turned to his right to look at the intersection where the kids had stopped fighting and were now hugging each other. He thought he saw a shadow beyond the parked cars. He stepped back off the pavement. The sound of the paper bag collapsing and scattering the groceries on the ground distracted him from his thoughts long enough to notice the car being thrown at him. Mason Stone threw himself to the side, sure that if the car had continued in that direction, that move would have been for nothing. He glanced at the driver but the taxi's headlights exploded in his head. The tyres slammed into the kerb, pushing the car back onto the road and the bumper missed his head by a whisker. With his hand on the revolver, he leapt for the rear door, just grazing the handle. The car accelerated in a screech of wheels. Mason could not read the number plate because he turned before the flecks of light burned into his eyes faded.
All he could make out was the company emblem on the side. Sunshine Cab.
Coffee and cigarettes
Who was driving the taxi that had tried to run him over?
He wondered if it was Samuel Perkins who was determined to put an end to the manhunt. Was it possible that a man on the run, with the whole police force at his heels, had the time to try to kill a private investigator who had been on his trail for only a few hours? Yes, if he was insane: eliminating him would not intimidate the police, nor could Mason understand how Sam could feel more threatened by him than by the department. Nor was there any explanation as to how he had come to know that he himself was on the case.
It was unlikely that he had any contact with Matthews' men. He might have had some at Lloyd & Wagon's, although after a few seconds Mason pushed that possibility out of his mind. It was more plausible that he had been tailing Andrew Lloyd for a couple of days until he had gone up to his Chinatown office.
Another lead, much easier to believe, was the Sunshine Cab, the company he worked for and where he might still have some friends. Taxi drivers are the ears of the city and Samuel, never more than at that moment, needed to know what was going on.
Unable to track the taxi, he reached his car in front of the Perkins' building. He started the engine and drove into the sparse evening traffic. Unfortunately, the only witness to the incident, the lady with the shopping bags, had not been able to see the driver's face because she was busy collecting her week's salvage. She barely understood what had happened. Mason discovered that he had bruised his shoulder trying to avoid the car. He realised it when he got behind the wheel. It wasn't serious. The pain behind his eyes was nagging at him. The insistent throbbing in his temples, however, was part of the job. It was what kept him moving.
Just inside the agency, the smell of coffee reached him. April had made plenty. He poured himself a cup and walked over to his desk. He let himself down in his chair and lit a cigarette.
She had to go to Sunshine, find out what she could about Sam, his habits, his vices, what might make him a wife killer and a fugitive. He had to get to predict his moves and get ahead of him. There was a small chance that the records would contain the racing data for the last period. He still didn't know if the car was his or the company's. He had to hope for a lucky hand. After that, there were secondary leads to consider, assess their plausibility and avoid dead ends. There was still too much smoke to see clearly. He had to get back to Lloyd, find out who the notary was that the doorman had picked up and what the news was.
He wrote a note to April asking her to make an effort to track down the notary's office, then sank into the back and closed his eyes with a view of the unresting city before him. The cigarette died in the ashtray next to the hot cup of coffee.
On two sides
It was April who woke him up.
Mason had responded to her smile, a mixture of kindness and guilt, with a gruff good morning. It wasn't directed at her but at the fact that he seemed never to have dozed off. Elizabeth Perkins' case had taken over.
April didn't seem to mind his rudeness but handed him his hat, which had fallen from the nape of his neck abandoned to sleep.
Mason Stone crinkled his eyes and sat up, elbows on the desk and eyes interrogating the calendar to find out how long he'd been asleep. April brought a cup of freshly brewed coffee which he instinctively intercepted.
"Can you read what it says?" April had found his note.
"Sure, boss."
"Good thing, sometimes I get in trouble myself."
"It's not so terrible. There was a guy I dated in high school, Paul Russel, he had such terrible handwriting that when he asked me out on a date, I thought he'd scribbled me out."
"What happened to Paul?"
"He was a nice guy and my parents liked him but he wasn't for me," the girl's cheeks lit up as she shrugged.
"You did well, then."
"What do I need to find out about this notary?"
"As much as you can. I know I haven't given you much to work with but I'm sure you'll do a great job. I want to know who he is and what he went to do at the Perkins' on the day Elizabeth died. It's vital, I'm afraid. The problem is, I don't know his name or the name of the firm. Just the rough description of a doorman. If there's anything, it's in the police statements."
"Are you still working on that case? Captain Martelli..."
"Of course. Besides, since I've been forbidden to deal with it, it's all become much more interesting."
"Interesting?"
"How long have you been with me?"
"Three years, seven months and sixteen days."
"And in that time, how many cases have we had?"
"Several dozen, I'd say."
"And how many times did Martelli or a police officer call us to inform us that we were not liked people and that, not only should we disregard but, even, refuse the assignment?"
"I would say none."
"And you don't find that curious?"
"Without a doubt."
"That makes two of us."
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing for the moment. We'll move on and see what happens. There are priorities to think about before playing cat and mouse with Martelli: I need to find Samuel Perkins, or find out what happened to him. The notary is your business, however. Get on it immediately."
"I'll go. One more perplexity yet, if I may."
"You may."
"What if Martelli had ordered your arrest in case you were discovered?"
"They may come."
"How?"
"Oh, fear not. If the captain arrested me, it would benefit me more than it would him. An arrest means at least a night in the slammer, an interrogation, maybe with Matthews himself, or Martelli if I'm so inclined. I doubt they'd let Peterson have me. They trust him less than they trust me. For someone who can listen and knows what to look for, a string of questions about my investigation might be more fruitful than reading all the case reports."
"But if they just wanted to keep you away they'd just keep you locked up!" April's voice trembled. "You need more than a pretext for an interrogation, don't you? They'd have to have well-founded reasons, like a serious criminal charge, to make them question you about what you know."
"And I'm on my way to get them." Mason rose from his desk and closed the study door behind him, accompanying April, uneasy but increasingly admiring, to her battle station.
Sunshine Cab
The big engine of the black Ford started at the first attempt. Sometimes she needed some encouragement, but who didn't? That car was her second office and third home after her office in Chinatown. It wasn't a king's bed but it served him like one. Without intermediate stops Mason Stone arrived at the Sunshine Cab.
Since the company's yard was bustling with cars, he parked on the opposite side of the street. Sunshine was one of the most important companies and favoured G-Model Checkers, but it was not uncommon for other cars to be converted to the job. Classifying the previous night's episode as a simple accident helped to make it less important. When you find yourself in quicksand, the best thing to do is to try to move as little as possible. At the speed at which the event had unfolded, however, he had managed to make out the taxi company's crest and guess the profile of a Checker. It was one of the cheaper cars, known for its reliability and low maintenance requirements, ideal for the job.
Mason found himself almost hoping that Sam was driving another car. If he didn't, it meant one of two things: either incredible, ostentatious stupidity on the man's part or an attempt to throw him off the scent. If the latter turned out to be true, he would waste a lot of time.
He had to track down the owner, a Julie Darden. He walked across the dusty yard and into the entrance. There was the stench of motor oil and grease stains all over the floor. The Sunshine Cab was nothing more than a huge, dirty, dusty shed with large windows opening up to the mechanics in the repair shop. No one looked up at him as he made his way to the offices. It was as anonymous as dormant the taxi drivers' capacity for wonder, so accustomed to oddities of all kinds.
Leaning against the office door, a driver in a foul mood was reading a no less pitiful newspaper, his beard unkempt and his visor cap lopsided three-quarters of the way up on his head.
"Hello." Mason stopped half a step away from him and the door. The man, distracted by his reading and intent on chewing gum, studied the newcomer for a few moments and then resumed his press review, unperturbed. The taxi driver's shoulder and weight pressed against the door. Mason reached under his arm to hold the newspaper, grabbed the handle and gave a little tug, just to check the man's intentions, who did not move.