The Longest Second (13 page)

The evening papers indicated the importance of an efficient publicity department. At least for the Acton-Plaza. Rosemary Martin’s body had been found at the hotel; she had been correctly identified although she had registered under an assumed name. She had not been working recently according to her agency, and it was believed that she was despondent. The police thought she had committed suicide. That was all. Brief, short, proper; no suppression of news; the freedom of the press upheld, and the advertising department of the Acton-Plaza not embarrassed.

I did not know and could only speculate how much information the police were going to dig up or how much they already knew. However, I was quite sure that I knew the reason Rosemary Martin had been murdered. After I thought the situation through, this was the way the facts appeared to me: Amar, or the group with which he was working, had located the safe deposit box. He had received the information in the letter forwarded to me through the
New Amsterdam Safe Box News
the night that Merkle was killed. Knowing the location of the box, he had to secure the key. It was inevitable that I had been searched thoroughly the night I had been taken for a ride, so Amar was sure that did not have it. He reasoned, then, that the key was in the possession of Rosemary Martin, and now that he was in position to use it, he went to get it. It took him a while locate her at the Acton-Plaza, and when he did it was too late. I had the key. Furthermore, I thought, Rosemary Martin had been calculatingly murdered. While Merkle’s death might have been accidental, her death had been deliberate. Even if Amar had been convinced that she no longer he the key, he had a reason to believe that I couldn’t use if it Rosemary Martin was dead. So, she was dead.

Amar could be expected to call on me in the near future. In the meantime, I attempted to merge into the colorless background of the Castillo by spending my days at the Warner Glass Company and staying close to my room in the evenings. My job interested me, and I was content to work—marking time until I could gather more facts and turn them into actions. Haines had explained that the methods used in creating stained glass windows vary in only the slightest details from the way they were made in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The tools are better; that is about the only difference.

In the shop there was an order for an extremely large and elaborate glass window to be made for a new library on Long Island. This window would require a long time to complete. In the beginning an artist conceives the design for a window and executes it in a colored miniature. From this miniature the glass artist draws cartoons to life size, and the cartoon in turn is rendered on pieces of heavy brown paper; this paper is, in truth, a pattern which is cut into exact shapes to fit the design of the window. Glass is cut by means of this paper pattern, assembled, and soldered with strips of solid lead.

I had constructed the outer, arched frame of metal for the window, and no one would examine it or be working with it again until the final assembly of all the pieces. Consequently, I soldered the safety deposit key, which Rosemary Martin had given me, into one end of the frame. It was safe there; no one would find it; and should it be necessary, I could remove it at any time.

Several nights later, I called Bianca on the phone. It was difficult to make myself understood without the use of my pad. I repeated several times, “See you?”

“You wish to see me?” she asked finally.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you come over here?”

“No.”

After a slight pause, she said, “I don’t think the house is being watched by the police.”

“No.”

“Shall I meet you then?”

“Yes.”

“Where? Oh, let me think.” She finally named a small restaurant a few blocks from her house and I agreed to meet her there.

I was waiting in the back of the cafe, in a small booth, when she appeared. She appeared tired, and looked worried, although she smiled when she saw me. “How are you?” she asked. I told her that I was fine.

“The police came to see me,” she said. “They got my address from Rosemary’s old modeling agency. They asked me nearly a million questions.”

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes, about you, too. I told them that you had worked for me for a while, then became tired of the job and left I didn’t know where you had gone.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Bianca sat listlessly, a cigarette in her hand. Occasionally she smoothed the wrinkles in the tablecloth, a nervous gesture leveling the little mountains and valleys. Finally she said, “The police asked me if I had ever met a man named Howard Wainwright. When I told them that I hadn’t they asked me next if Rosemary had ever mentioned his name. She never had.”

I looked at her inquiringly. “Wain-wright?” I attempted to ask.

“Yes,” she replied. “Wainwright. It seems that he was some kind of wealthy broker, or he did something like that, down near Wall Street. Rosemary was supposed to be seeing a great deal of him.”

In the back of my mind the name repeated again and again ... Wainwright, Wainwright, Wainwright.

She continued, “Well, the police went to see Wainwright and discovered that his office was closed. He’d disappeared; no one knew where he was or where he is now.”

I knew this information about Wainwright was important. I wanted to know more. As yet, I was unable to place his name, but I recognized it. It was unfortunate that I was unable to go back to see Delton, but I did not care to push my luck too far. Delton, I hoped, would keep quiet regarding his activity in locating Rosemary Martin at the Acton-Plaza. He did not know my name, naturally, but I could be easily identified because of my voice. I didn’t believe that Delton would volunteer information to the police, and there was a reasonable possibility that, unless they should come across his trail, he might know nothing of the murder having occurred. The papers had carried it inconspicuously enough to have escaped his notice.

Wainwright, I decided, would have to be investigated through other channels.

Bianca opened her purse and peered into a tiny mirror.

Without glancing up, she asked, “How do ... do you have enough money to live on?”

I assured her that I had enough.

She snapped shut her purse and arose to her feet. Although I followed her to the front of the cafe, I permitted her to leave by herself, as a precaution in case she was followed by the police. “Call me again, Vic,” she said. “Call me anytime.”

I told her yes, that I would call her.

After Bianca Hill had gone, I smoked another cigarette. I continued to turn the matter over in my mind: I had my throat cut; Rosemary Martin was murdered; a broker named Wainwright had disappeared. This was not coincidence— there had to be a connection. In my head I heard the word
“Jahsh,”
the Arabic word for donkey. It was my own sense telling me that I was an ass. Of course there was a connection ... Pacific, Martin, Wainwright! Merkle had been insignificant and unimportant, a pawn caught out of position. But Wainwright ... and suddenly I remembered the name ... had been important. I had better find out more about him!

JENSEN looked at his wrist watch. It was nearly twelve noon. He yawned. “Christ, I’m sleepy!” he said.

“We should hear from Gorman pretty soon,” Burrows replied.

“You know,” said Jensen, “it was a funny thing how the war did a lot of good for a bunch of those young hoods. After they came back, they’d had it. Today they’re nice peaceful citizens.”

“Maybe. But you can’t say that about Pacific. Anybody who ends up getting his throat slit can hardly be called a nice peaceful citizen.”

“Yeah, but maybe it wasn’t his fault. Although I doubt it. A guy can be killed in a stick-up or a mugging ... accidental-like, and it isn’t his fault.”

“But this wasn’t a stick-up or mugging,” Burrows objected.

“I know it.” Jensen was becoming irritable through fatigue. “What I was going to say was that Pacific might’ve started out as a young punk. The war ... the discipline … sort of straightened him out—at least for a while. Ten, fifteen years. Then he got back into the old routine again.”

“He had a good Army record,” Burrows said.

“Sure. Six hundred and fourth Tanks ... a damned good outfit. A rugged one, too. Pacific bucked all the way up to sergeant in a good company.”

“I see he originally asked for service in the Rangers.” Jensen laughed. “Remember those days?” he asked. “You were a good mechanic, say, and you asked for service in a truck depot ... someplace, or something, you knew something about. And what did you get?”

“A job taking shorthand in Alaska,” replied Burrows. “But what I’m beginning to believe was this guy Pacific was a tough character right from the beginning. The Rangers ... the Scouts ... were just about the toughest. Like the English Commandos.”

“Judo, hand-to-hand combat, sure. But a lot of young guys thought they’d like it. Anyway, what Pacific got wasn’t a creampuff. The tanks in Africa were plain misery.” Jensen removed a number of papers clipped together, unfolded them, and glanced at the detailed report. “It says that he got his in a little place called Al-Slaoui. His tank got trapped and was blasted out direct by artillery. The rest of his crew was killed. He got it bad in the back, and was reported dead. There was a short retreat but twenty-four hours later there was a general advance and Pacific showed up at the field hospital after the line had been straightened out again. He was hospitalized in England, and then given a medical discharge and returned to the United States.”

“He was lucky,” said Burrows.

“Sure he was lucky,” agreed Jensen. “A lot of those guys never came back. But then his luck ran out. After all this time he finally got it.” Jensen for a moment became a philosopher, “And so, it just proves—everybody gets it in the end anyway. You can’t live forever.”

“No, but I’d like to try,” said Burrows.

I ASKED
Haines, “Okay?” and handed him a note in which I had requested permission to take an extra hour on my lunchtime. “Sure,” Haines agreed. I walked over to the subway at Union Square and caught a train to Forty-second Street. The other side of Broadway I located the address of Panoramic Photography, Inc.

Within the office there was the indefinable smell of drying negatives, developing fluids, and chemicals which always seem to be associated with photographers ... even a street photographer. A morose man, with a lantern jaw, sat patiently while I wrote out my request. “Do you have any pictures of the New York skyline?” he repeated my question aloud as he read it. “Hell,” he said, “does the ocean have salt?” His name was Donlan, and his company specialized in aerial photography for maps and survey work, including oil pipe lines, canals, and other commercial projects.

Placing the colored post card on his desk, I pointed to the minute pink building in the skyline, then wrote that it was important to me to identify that building. Donlan inspected the card with unconcealed distaste. “This thing was highly retouched from a cheap shot to begin with,” he said. “The lithographers have probably been using the same plates for ten years.” He inspected the card again, this time very carefully, and finally established the identity of several buildings. “Let me see what we’ve got in the way of shots of this particular area,” he said, walking into the next room. He rummaged through a number of large, wooden filing cases and returned to his desk with a thick pile of photographs. Sitting down, he thumbed through the pictures, occasionally tossing one aside. When he had completed this task, he gathered the half-dozen selected shots and began to examine them again. “Here’s the Empire State Building,” he said, “which is easy enough to recognize. The building you’re trying to identify is uptown in relation to the Empire State and to the left which would make it to the west.” He returned to a study of the pictures, and after a long silence said, “I think, maybe, the building you’re interested in is either the Amco or the National Federated. It could be either one depending on the angle and altitude the original shot was taken. They are nearly directly behind each other and separated by a distance of two blocks. The Empire State Building is on the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. The Amco is on Thirty-sixth near Sixth Avenue and National Federated is behind it on Thirty-eighth.” Leaning back in his chair, he concluded, “At least that’s my guess and it doesn’t cost you anything.”

I thanked him and left the office of Panoramic Photography, Inc. As it wasn’t far to walk, I went down to Thirty-eighth and looked at the National Federated Building. If the building was pink, it was that color only in the feverous mind of the lithographer. It was the same as any other building. In the lobby a directory of the building contained a long list of names of the companies located in it. I read the list carefully, but failed to recognize any name or find a company which held any significance for me. A little later, two blocks away, I again studied the directory of the Amco Building, another tall, gray skyscraper with floor upon floor of identical windows. When I left the lobby of the Amco Building, however, I had something to think about. Among its most conspicuous tenants, and located on the ground floor, was the First International Export Bank.

When I returned to work, Haines asked me if I had taken care of my business, and I told him yes, that I had. During the afternoon, as I worked with my metal and glass, I first began to have an understanding of myself. It was the glass which began to make me understand. Two types of glass are used, traditionally, in making stained glass windows. There is the true stained glass which is called “pot-metal” glass, and it is one color only—red or blue or green or purple or any other color—all the way through.

The other kind of glass is called “flashed-glass” and is a combination of two colors, although one color must always be white. Each color of glass is an individual sheet, and the two sheets are fused, melted, and glazed together such as red and white; green and white, blue and white, and so on. By the use of acid, the over color, which is always the colored sheet, never the white, may be etched away in areas where desired. The white sheet, thus exposed, may be re-etched and stained, but only to one color. That color invariably is yellow or gold.