The 1st Deadly Sin (33 page)

“What?” Delaney cried. “What did you say?”

“I asked the clerk what it was used—”

“No, no,” the Captain said impatiently. “What did the clerk say it was called?”

“It’s an ice ax.”

“Jesus Christ,” Delaney breathed. “Leon Trotsky. Mexico City. Nineteen-forty.”

“What? Captain, I don’t understand.”

“Leon Trotsky. He was a refuge from Stalin’s Russia—or perhaps he escaped or was deported; I don’t remember exactly; I’ll have to look it up. Trotsky and Lenin and Stalin were equals at one time. Then Lenin died. Then Stalin wanted to be Numero Uno. So Trotsky got out of Russia, somehow, and made his way to Mexico City. They caught up with him in nineteen-forty. At least it was said the assassin was an agent of the Russian Secret Police. I don’t recall the details. But he killed Trotsky with an ice ax.”

“Surely you don’t think there’s any connection between that and Frank Lombard’s death?”

“Oh no. I doubt that very much. I’ll look into it, of course, but I don’t think there’s anything there.”

“But you think Lombard may have been killed with an ice ax?”

“Let me freshen your drink,” Delaney said. He went over to the liquor cabinet, came back with new drinks for both of them. “Mr. Langley, I don’t know whether being a detective is a job, a career, a profession, a talent or an art. There are some things I do know. One, you can’t teach a man to be a
good
detective, anymore than you can teach him to be an Olympic miler or a great artist. And two, no matter how much talent and drive a man starts out with, he can never become a
good
detective without experience. The more years, the better. After you’ve been at it awhile, you begin to see the patterns. People repeat, in motives, weapons, methods of entrance and escape, alibis. You keep finding the same things happening over and over again; forced windows, kitchen knives, slashed screens, tire irons, jammed locks, rat poison—the lot. It all becomes familiar. Well, what bugged me about the Lombard killing, nothing
familiar
in it. Nothing! The first reaction, of course, going by percentages, was that it had been committed by a relative or acquaintance, someone known to Lombard. Negative. The next possibility was that it was an attempted robbery, a felony-homicide. Negative. His money hadn’t even been touched. And worst of all, we couldn’t even identify the weapon. But now you walk in here and say, ‘Ice ax.’ Magic words! Click! Trotsky was killed with an ice ax. Suddenly I’ve got something
familiar.
A murder weapon that’s been used before. It’s hard to explain, I know, Mr. Langley, but I feel better about this than I’ve felt since it started. I think we’re moving now. Thanks to you.”

The man glowed.

“But I’m sorry,” Delaney said. “I interrupted you. You were telling me what the clerk at Abercrombie & Fitch said when you asked him what the ice ax was used for. What did he say?”

“What?” Langley asked again, somewhat dazed. “Oh. Well, he said it was used in mountain climbing. You could use it like a cane, leaning on the head. The spike on the butt of the handle bites into crusty snow or ice, if you’re hiking across a glacier, for instance. He said you could get this ice ax with different ends on the butt—a spike, the way I saw it, or with a little wheel, like a ski pole, for soft snow, and so forth. So then I asked him if there was a shorter ice ax available, a one-handed tool, but with the head shaped the same way. He was very vague; he wasn’t sure. But he thought there was such an implement, and he thought the whole thing might be made of steel. Think of that, Captain! A one-handed tool, all steel, with a spike that curves downward and tapers to a sharp point as it curves. How does that strike you?”

“Excellent!” Captain Delaney crowed. “Just excellent! It’s now a familiar weapon, used in a previous homicide, and I feel very good about it. Mr. Langley, you’ve done wonders.”

“Oh,” the old man smiled, “it was mostly luck. Really.”

“You make your own luck,” Delaney assured him. “And my luck. Our luck. You followed through. Did the clerk tell you where you can buy a one-handed ice ax?”

“Well…no. But he did say there were several stores in New York that specialized in camping and mountain climbing equipment—axes, hatchets, crampons, special rucksacks, nylon rope and things of that sort. The stores must be listed somewhere. Probably in the Yellow Pages. Captain, can I stick with this?”

Delaney took two quick steps forward, clapped the little man on both arms.

“Can you?” he declaimed.
“Can
you? I should think you can! You’re doing just fine. You try to pin down that one-handed, all-steel ice ax, who sells them, who buys them. Meanwhile, I want to dig into the Trotsky murder, maybe get a photo of the weapon. And I want to get more information on mountain climbers. Mr. Langley, we’re moving. We’re really
doing
now! I’ll call you or you call me. The hell with security.

I just feel—I
know
—we’re heading in the right direction! Instinct? Maybe. Logic has nothing to do with it. It just
feels
right.”

He got Langley out of there, finally, bubbling with enthusiasm and plans of how he intended to trace the ice ax. Delaney nodded, smiled, agreeing to everything Langley said until he could, with decency, usher him out, lock the front door, and come back into the study. He paced up and down in front of his desk, hands shoved into hip pockets, chin on chest.

Then he grabbed up the telephone directory, looked up the number, and dialed Thomas Handry’s newspaper. The switchboard operator gave him the City Room where they told him Handry had left for the day. He asked for Handry’s home phone number, but they wouldn’t give it to him.

“Is it an unlisted number?” he asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“This is Captain Edward X. Delaney, New York Police Department,” the Captain said in his most pontifical tones. “I’m calling on official business. I can get Handry’s phone number from the telephone company, if you insist. It would save time if you gave it to me. If you want to check on me, call your man at Centre Street. Who is he—Slawson?”

“Slawson died last year.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. He was a good reporter.”

“Yes. Just a minute, Captain.”

The man came back and read off Handry’s home phone number. Delaney thanked him, hung up, waited a few seconds, then lifted the receiver again and dialed. No answer. He waited ten minutes and called again. Still no answer.

There wasn’t much in the refrigerator: half of that same baked ham he had had for lunch and some salad stuff. He sliced two thick slices of ham, then sliced a tomato and cucumber. He smeared mustard on the ham, and salad dressing on the rest. He ate it quickly, crunching on a hard roll. He glanced several times at his watch as he ate, anxious to get back to the hospital.

He slid plate and cutlery into the sink, rinsed his hands, and went back into his study to call Handry again. This time he got through.

“Hello?”

“Thomas Handry?”

“Yes.”

“Captain Edward X. Delaney here.”

“Oh. Hello, Captain. How are you?”

“Well, thank you. And you?”

“Fine. I heard you’re on leave of absence.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“I understand your wife is ill. Sorry to hear that. I hope she’s feeling better.”

“Yes. Thank you. Handry, I want a favor from you.”

“What is it, Captain?”

“First of all, I want some information on the murder of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in nineteen-forty. I thought you might be able to get it from your morgue.”

“Trotsky in Mexico City in nineteen-forty? Jesus, Captain, that was before I was born.”

“I know.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing heavy. Just what the newspapers of the time reported. How he was killed, who killed him, the weapon used. If there was a photograph of the weapon published, and you could get a photostat, that would help.”

“What’s this all about?”

“The second thing,” Delaney went on, ignoring the question, “is that I’d like the name and address of the best mountain climber in New York—the top man, or most experienced, or most skillful. I thought you might be able to get it from your Sports Desk.”

“Probably. Will you please tell me what the hell this is all about?”

“Can you have a drink with me tomorrow? Say about five o’clock?”

“Well…sure. I guess so.”

“Can you have the information by then?”

“I’ll try.”

“Fine. I’ll tell you about it then.” Delaney gave him the address of the chop house where he had lunched with Dr. Ferguson. “Is that all right, Handry?”

“Sure. I’ll see what I can do. Trotsky and the mountain climber. Right?”

“Right. See you tomorrow.”

Delaney hurried out and got a cab on Second Avenue. He was at the hospital within fifteen minutes. When he gently opened the door of his wife’s room, he saw at once she was sleeping. He tiptoed over to the plastic armchair, switched off the floor lamp, then took off his overcoat. He sat down as quietly as he could.

He sat there for two hours, hardly moving' He may have dozed off a few minutes, but mostly he stared at his wife. She was sleeping calmly and deeply. No one came into the room. He heard the corridor sounds dimly. Still he sat, his mind not so much blank as whirring, leaping, jumping about without order or connection: their children, Handry, Langley, Broughton, the Widow Zimmerman, the ice ax, Thorsen and Johnson, a driver’s license—a smear of thoughts, quick frames of a short movie, almost blending, looming, fading…

At the end of the two hours he scrawled a message in his notebook, tore the page out, propped it on her bedside table. “I was here. Where were you? Love and violets. Ted.” He tiptoed from the room.

He walked back to their home, certain he would be mugged, but he wasn’t. He went back into his study and resumed his readings of the histories, motives and methods of mass murderers. There was no one pattern.

He put the books aside, turned off the study lights shortly after midnight. He toured the basement and street floor, checking windows and locks. Then he trudged upstairs to undress, take a warm shower, and shave. He pulled on fresh pajamas. The image of his naked body in the bathroom mirror was not encouraging. Everything—face, neck, breasts, abdomen, ass, thighs—seemed to be sinking.

He got into bed, switched off the bedside lamp, and lay awake for almost an hour, turning from side to side, his mind churning. Finally he turned on the lamp, shoved his feet into wool slippers, went padding down to the study again. He dug out his list, the one beaded “The Suspect.” Under the “Physical” column he had jotted “An athlete?” He crossed this out and inserted “A mountain climber?” At the bottom, under “Additional Notes,” he wrote “Possesses an ice ax?”

It wasn’t much, he admitted. In fact, it was ridiculous. But when he turned out the study lights, climbed once more to the empty bedroom, and slid into bed, he fell asleep almost instantly.

2

“
Y
OU DIDN’T GIVE
me much time,” Thomas Handry said, unlocking his attache case. “I guessed you’d be more interested in the assassination itself rather than the political background, so most of the stuff I’ve got is on the killing.”

“You guessed right,” Captain Delaney nodded. “By the way, I read all your articles on the Department. Pretty good, for an outsider.”

“Thanks a whole hell of a lot!”

“You want to write poetry, don’t you?”

Handry was astonished, physically. He jerked back in the booth, jaw dropping, took off his Benjamin Franklin reading glasses.

“How did you know that?”

“Words and phrases you used. The rhythm. And you were trying to get inside cops. It was a good try.”

“Well…you can’t make a living writing poetry.”

“Yes. That’s true.”

Handry was embarrassed. So he looked around at the paneled walls, leather-covered chairs, old etchings and playbills, yellowed and filmed with dust.

“I like this place,” he said. “I’ve never been here before. I suppose it was created last year, and they sprayed dirt on everything. But they did a good job. It really does look old.”

“It is,” Delaney assured him. “Over a hundred years. It’s not a hype. How’s your ale?”

“Real good. All right, let’s get started.” He took handwritten notes from his attache case and began reading rapidly.

“Leon Trotsky. Da-dah da-dah da-dah. One of the leaders of the Russian Revolution, and after. A theorist. Stalin drives him out of Russia, but still doesn’t trust him. Trotsky, even overseas, could be plotting. Trotsky gets to Mexico City. He’s suspicious, naturally. Very wary. But he can’t live in a closet. A guy named Jacson makes his acquaintance. It’s spelled two ways in newspaper reports: J-a-c-s-o-n and J-a-c-k-s-o-n. A white male. He visits Trotsky for at least six months. Friends. But Trotsky never sees
anyone
unless his secretaries and bodyguards are present. August twentieth, nineteen-forty, Jacson comes to visit Trotsky, bringing an article he’s written that he wants Trotsky to read. I couldn’t find what it was about. Probably political. Jacson is invited into the study. For the first time the secretaries aren’t notified. Jacson said later that Trotsky started reading the article. He sat behind his desk. Jacson stood at his left. He had a raincoat, and in the pockets were an ice ax, a revolver, and a dagger. He said—”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Delaney protested. “Jacson had an ice ax in his raincoat pocket? Impossible. It would never fit.”

“Well, one report said it was in the raincoat pocket. Another said it was concealed by Jacson’s raincoat.”

“‘Concealed.’ That’s better.”

“All right, so Trotsky is reading Jacson’s article. Jacson takes the ice ax from under his raincoat, or out of the pocket, and smashes it down on Trotsky’s skull. Trotsky shrieks and throws himself on Jacson, biting his left hand. Beautiful. Then he staggers backward. The secretaries come running in and grab Jacson.”

“Why the revolver and dagger?”

“Jacson said they were to be used to kill himself after he killed Trotsky.”

“It smells. Did Trotsky die then, in his study?”