Westlake, Donald E - Novel 41 (16 page)

 
          
 
"That's it. Prove different."

 
          
 
"Let's see the scratches on your left
hand."

 
          
 
The boy allowed tension to show for just an
instant, before he said, "I don't have any on my left hand.
Just the right.
So what?"

 
          
 
Crawley
turned
to the father. "Does that sound right to you?"

           
 
"Why not?" demanded Brodek
defensively.
"You play with a
cat,
maybe you only use one hand.
You trying
to railroad my
son because of some cat scratches?"

 
          
 
This wasn't the way to do it, and Levine knew it.
Little corroborative proofs, they weren't enough. They could add weight to an
already-held conviction, that's all they could do. They couldn't change an
opposite conviction.

 
          
 
The Brodeks had to be reminded, some way, of
the enormity of what their son had done. Levine wished he could open his brain
for them like a book, so they could look in and read it there. They must know
,
they must at their ages have some inkling of the
monstrousness of death. But they had to be reminded.

 
          
 
There was one way to do it. Levine knew the
way, and shrank from it. It was as necessary as
Crawley
's brutality with the old woman in the back
of the store. Just as necessary.
But more brutal.
And
he had flinched away from that earlier, lesser brutality, telling himself
Af
could never do such a thing.

 
          
 
He looked over at his partner, hoping
Crawley
would think of the way, hoping
Crawley
would take the action from Levine. But
Crawley
was still parading his little corroborative
proofs, before an audience not yet prepared to accept them.

 
          
 
Levine shook his head, and took a deep breath,
and stepped forward an additional pace into the room. He said, "May I use
your phone?"

 
          
 
They all looked at him,
Crawley
puzzled, the boy wary,
the
parents hostile. The father finally shrugged and said, "Why not?
On the stand there, by the TV."

 
          
 
"May I turn the volume down?"

 
          
 
"Turn the damn thing off if you want, who
can pay any attention to it?"

 
          
 
"Thank you."

 
          
 
Levine switched off the television set, then
searched in the phone book and found the number of Kosofsky's Grocery.

           
 
He dialed, and a male voice answered on the
first ring, saying, "Kosofsky's. Hello?"

 
          
 
"Is this
Stanton
?"

 
          
 
"No, Wills. Who's this?"

 
          
 
"Detective Levine.
I was down there a little while ago."

 
          
 
"Oh, sure.
What
can I do for you, sir?"

 
          
 
"How's Mrs. Kosofsky now?"

 
          
 
"How is she? I don't know, I mean, she
isn't hysterical or anything. She's just sitting there."

 
          
 
"Is she capable of going for a
walk?"

 
          
 
Wills', "I guess so," was drowned
out by Mr. Brodek's shouted, "What the hell are you up to?"

 
          
 
Into the phone, Levine said, "Hold on a
second." He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece, and looked at the angry
father. "I want you to understand," he told him, "just what it
was your son did tonight. I want to make sure you understand. So I'm going to
have Mrs. Kosofsky come up here.
For her to look at Danny
again.
And for you to look at her while she's looking
at him."

 
          
 
Brodek paled slightly, and an uncertain look
came into his eyes. He glanced quickly at his son, then even more quickly back
at Levine. "The hell with you," he said defiantly. "Danny was
here all night. Do whatever the hell you want."

 
          
 
Mrs. Brodek started to speak, but cut it off
at the outset, making only a tiny sound in her throat. But it was enough to make
the rest swivel their heads and look at her. Her eyes were wide. Strain lines
had deepened around her mouth, iand one hand trembled at the base of her
throat. She stared in mute appeal at Levine, her eyes clearly saying. Don't
make me know.

 
          
 
Levine forced himself to turn away, say into
the phone, "I'm at the Brodeks. Bring Mrs. Kosofsky up here, will you?
It's the next block down to your right, 1342,
apartment 4
-
d."

 
          
 
It was a long silent wait. No one spoke at all
from the time Levine hung up the telephone till the time Wills arrived with

           
 
Mrs. Kosofsky. The five of them sat in the
drab living room, avoiding one another's eyes. From another room, deeper in the
apartment, a clock that had before been unnoticeable now ticked loudly. The
ticks were very fast, but the minutes they clocked off crept slowly by.

 
          
 
When the rapping finally came at the hall
door, they all jumped. Mrs. Brodek turned her hopeless eyes toward Levine
again, but he looked away, at his partner.
Crawley
lumbered to his feet and out of the room,
down the corridor to the front door. Those in the room heard him open the door,
heard the murmur of male voices, and then the clear frightened voice of the old
woman: "Who lives here? Who lives in this place?"

 
          
 
Levine looked up and saw that Danny Brodek was
watching him, eyes hard and cold, face set in lines of bitter hatred. Levine
held his gaze, pitying him, until Danny looked away, mouth twisting in an
expression of scorn that didn't quite come off.

 
          
 
Then
Crawley
came back into the room, stepping aside for the old woman to follow him in.
Beyond her could be seen the pale young face of the patrolman.
Wills.

 
          
 
She saw Levine first. Her eyes were frightened
and bewildered. Her fingers plucked at a button of the long black coat she now
wore over her dress. In the brighter light of this room, she looked older,
weaker,
more
helpless.

 
          
 
She looked second at Mrs. Brodek, whose
expression was as terrified as her own, and then she saw Danny.

 
          
 
She cried out, a high-pitched failing whimper,
and turned hurriedly away, pushing against
Wills
,
jabbering, "Away! Away! I go away!"

 
          
 
Levine's voice sounded over her hysteria:
"
It's
okay, Wills. Help her back to the
store." He couldn't keep the bitter rage from his voice. The others might
have thought it was rage against Danny Brodek, but they would have been wrong.
It was rage against
himself
. What good would it do to
convict Danny Brodek, to jail him for twenty or thirty years? Would it undo
what he had done? Would it restore her husband to Mrs. Kosofsky? It wouldn't.
But nothing less could excuse the vicious thing he had just done to her.

 
          
 
Faltering, nearly whispering, Mrs. Brodek
said, "I want to talk to Danny. I want to talk to my son."

 
          
 
Her husband glared warningly at her.
"Esther, he was here all
— "

 
          
 
"I want to talk to my son!"

 
          
 
Levine said, "All right," Down the
corridor, the door snicked shut behind Wills and the old woman.

 
          
 
Mrs. Brodek said, "Alone.
In his bedroom."

 
          
 
Levine looked at
Crawley
, who shrugged and said, "Three
minutes. Then we come in."

 
          
 
The boy said, "Mom, what's there to talk
about?"

 
          
 
"I want to talk to you," she told
him icily.
"Now."

 
          
 
She led the way from the room, Danny Brodek
following her reluctantly, pausing to throw back one poisonous glance at Levine
before shutting the connecting door.

 
          
 
Brodek cleared his throat, looking uncertainly
at the two detectives. "Well," he said. "Well. She really —she
really thinks it was him, doesn't she?"

 
          
 
"She sure does," said
Crawley
.

 
          
 
Brodek shook his head slowly. "Not Danny,"
he said, but he was talking to himself.

 
          
 
Then they heard Mrs. Brodek cry out from the
bedroom, and a muffled thump. All three men dashed across the living room,
Crawley
reaching the door first and throwing it
open, leading the way down the short hall to the second door and running
inside. Levine followed him, and Brodek, grunting, "My God. Oh, my
God," came in third.

 
          
 
Mrs. Brodek sat hunched on the floor of the
tiny bedroom, arms folded on the seat of an unpainted kitchen chair. A
bright-colored shirt was hung askew on the back of the chair.

 
          
 
She looked up as they ran in, and her face was
a blank, drained of all emotion and all life and all personality. In a voice as
toneless and blank as her face, she told him, "He went up the fire escape.
He got the gun, from under his mattress. He went up the fire escape."

 
          
 
Brodek started toward the open window, but
Crawley
pulled him back, saying, "He might be
waiting up there. He'll fire at the first head he sees."

 
          
 
Levine had found a comic book and a small gray
cap on the dresser-top. He twisted the comic book in a large cylinder, stuck
the cap on top of it,
held
it slowly and cautiously
out the window. From above, silhouetted, it would look like a head and neck.

 
          
 
The shot rang loud from above, and the comic
book was jerked from Levine's hand. He pulled his hand back and
Crawley
said, "The stairs."

 
          
 
Levine followed his partner back out of the
bedroom. The last he saw in there, Mr, Brodek was reaching down, with an
awkward shyness, to touch his wife's cheek.

 
          
 
This was the top floor of the building. After
this, the staircase went up one more flight, ending at a metal-faced door which
opened onto the roof.
Crawley
led the way, his small flat pistol now in
his hand, and Levine climbed more slowly after him.