Murder on Location (20 page)

I followed him into one of a string of offices on the edge of the news area. This reduced some of the noise of the room and with the door pulled shut you could almost think you were in a changing room in a department store. Wally had wired up a coffee maker on a crowded bookshelf, which I looked through: review copies with slips of paper in front asking him to send two copies of the review to the publisher. The wall was decorated with pictures of Wally under the lights reading the news, different angles, different studio sets, but it all looked like the same news. I took the other chair, and could feel the back wall behind me and his desk pressed into my knees.

“Tell me, Benny, what do you make of the suicide? I hear there wasn't a note.”

“Wally, I just find bodies. I don't theorize about them. I just told the cops what I found. I didn't see any of the usual fake suicide things at the scene.”

“What faked stuff?”

“Every time a murderer tries to cover his tracks by making a crime scene look like a suicide, he slips up in ways that are easy for an expert to spot. If you've spent a day in front of the television, you know some of them. In a hanging, for instance, if it's faked, you can tell when the body has been strangled first and then hoisted into
place. If you pull a heavy weight over a beam, friction will wear a groove in the beam and also worry fragments of hemp off the rope. That's the first thing the cops look for. You've got to be a forensic specialist to see the fine points, but any experienced homicide man looks for obvious things like notes, access to the windowsill, the length of the fall. That sort of thing. No, Wally, it looks like poor Miranda did herself in after settling a score with David Hayes.” Wally handed me a cup with the station logo on it while I was talking.

“I've got to get back in a minute, Benny.”

“Sure, sure. Wally, tell me, is there a blueprint or a chart of this place around somewhere?”

“You mean the Pagoda?” He knew I meant the Pagoda, so he paused for a second then jerked his thumb in the direction of one of the other offices. “Greg has his office littered with that stuff. If you want to see his albums, he can show you pictures all the way through construction.”

“Unnecessary. But I would like to see the architect's drawings, if I may.” Wally gestured “Help yourself” and finished off a mug of what looked like cold coffee. While I studied the visible part of Greg's collection, he went back on active service. I saw where the stairs went, and how the rooms and offices branched off the central stem. The whole structure had a hollow core and up it ran most of the service conduits. It was all very instructive.

On my way out, I passed the control room, which looked through a double-glass window onto the familiar
desk and cut-out skyline of the news set. I took the elevator up, past the observation floor, to the dining-room. I'd booked a table for two in Noonan's name. All heads turned when I came into the room. It gave my ego a pleasant boost, but later I noticed that all heads turned when anybody came into the room. It was that kind of crowd. All their conversations looked bright and trendy. I was a few minutes late, but the maître d' didn't remind me as he showed me to a table with the famous view. It was still lit up like a ten-cent postcard, and from this height it was no more animated. I could see the crack in the floor which separated the revolving part of the room from the stationary part. I watched the view change minutely through the window. After I'd travelled about six feet, I changed places with myself. I hated riding backwards. Another fifteen feet went by and Noonan was standing beside the table. I offered him the other chair and he took it.

“You get a great view from up here,” Noonan said, and I ignored it. He was panting like a bird dog in August.

“You talked to your pal?”

“Look, you didn't give me much time. And with this Pride thing coming out of left field …” A waiter brought us huge menus. I hadn't counted on having to cope with distractions, so I asked what the special was and ordered that. It seemed the simplest way, even if I didn't understand the French. Noonan ordered steak, and a double rye before the hors d'oeuvres arrived.

“It doesn't matter. It's not a mystery any more. You can relax and enjoy your meal. Furlong's got other headaches tonight. You can come out of the closest without surprising me.”

“I didn't say that.”

“That's right. I didn't hear it from you. You want it in writing?

“Well, I …”

“Cut it short, Noonan. You aren't protecting anybody. The battle line has shifted and you're left waiting at the gate alone. This has all got more complicated than you can imagine. Billie's become too popular for one man. This is an international convention. What did Furlong tell you?”

“The truth of the matter is …”

“I said cut it. Do you want this girl's blood on your hands?”

“Look, I'm only acting as an agent here.”

“I know, I know. Your gloves are clean. Nobody's going to bring suit against you. Don't worry. So, let's hear what he said.”

“He told me to stonewall you if I could.”

“But you can't. So then?”

“And if I got stuck, I'm to tell you that, yes, Neil did see Mrs. Mason a few times. It seems that …”

“Yeah, I know. They're old friends. Just catching up for lost time.”

“That's right.”

“Meanwhile, where is Billie Mason? When did he see her last?”

“I don't think he saw her after Wednesday night.”

“I was with him on Wednesday night and he was alone.”

“I mean for dinner. They went over to the Patriot Volunteer on the road to Youngstown on the American side.”

“I saw him beginning around 11:30 or 11:45 and I was with him until he left to talk to Raxlin about script changes. So he left Billie around eleven. That checks out with what I have. How is he taking his wife's death?”

“I left a pretty broken man, I'll tell you. He was just limp with grief. Couldn't even talk about it.”

“I see. This afternoon you said you'd call him. Why the change? He had something for you? Something on account, for services rendered?”

“You've got a filthy mind, Cooperman. I couldn't even imagine anything so low.”

“Well, you've got an envelope sticking out of your inside breast pocket.” Quickly he moved his right hand to his pocket, his heavy brows nearly joining for a second, and then when he found I'd been bluffing he put his hand on the table: a fat little hand with short fingers and untidy nails, but useful for picking things up and then forgetting where they'd been stashed.

“Tell me all about Hayes. The whole story this time. The time for fiction is past. I spent this afternoon with the cops and they aren't finished with me yet. So far I've kept you out of it.”

“Okay, sure. There's not much to tell. They came to see me together, Billie and Hayes. I took their names, did all the routine things, put them in the file. Then …”

“Then you decided to get Billie on her own. Up to your old tricks.”

“A man's only human. You don't see a girl like that twice. Sure. I called her up, invited her out to eat. We were in the main restaurant of the Colonel John. I was trying to impress her, I guess. Furlong was sitting at the next table. Sitting alone. Miranda was still in New York. I invited him to join us.”

“Still trying to impress her, only it backfired.”

“He told me later that he knew her from a few years ago. They did plays together or something. They didn't even notice when I got up to go to the john. They were like a couple right from then on. Neil gave me a look and I excused myself. If I said I had to talk to my dead grandmother, they wouldn't have noticed anything offkey. So I beat it. The next day Neil called and told me to cover for him in case Hayes came looking for Billie. He seemed to be sure he would, and he was right. Hayes came in asking questions and said she wasn't at the boarding house any more. I told him I'd keep my eyes peeled and he left. I only saw him again once more. He called every day, though. I had Estelle take the calls after the first day.”

“She's a good-looking girl, your Estelle.”

“She can do eighty words a minute.”

“Old Incorruptible.”

“Hey, wait a minute. Estelle lives with her mother.”

“I never breathed a word. Tell me about that last time you saw Hayes. When was that?”

“It was on Thursday morning, two days before he was killed. I was having breakfast at the Colonel John. Neil

was sitting behind me, must have arrived after I got there. He would have joined me if he'd seen me, since I was by myself. Anyway, I heard two voices being raised. Not loud, you know, not an argument, but just a smidgen louder than the hum of breakfast conversation.”

By that time, the hors d'oeuvres had arrived and I stayed close to the tried and true, things I recognized like grated raw carrot and hard-boiled eggs. There was a lot of other stuff on the platter too, but I couldn't look at most of it. Then, when dinner came, Noonan got his steak: it was fresh-killed and bleeding. I got a thin piece of veal with a lemon sauce on it. It could have been worse. Over the years I've found that my expectations go down the higher off the ground I'm eating.

“Back to business. You were saying?”

“So I looked over my shoulder, and there was Hayes standing talking to Neil. I thought, ‘Oh God, he's found out about Neil and Billie, and Neil'll blame me.' But, in a minute, Hayes sat down with him at his table and they were talking more friendly like. When I got up to pay, I pretended not to see them, but I listened a little. They were talking about
Ice Bridge
. I thought that Neil was a cool customer to talk Hayes down so fast.”

“Do you remember anything specific from what they said?”

“You don't want much for nothing!” Noonan snorted, then ate another piece of dripping steak. “Hayes was saying ‘We don't need the Pagoda. We can bring in hoods from Atlantic City.' Then Neil stopped him and told him

that was out. There had to be another way. Hayes started to laugh at that, but Neil said that if it wasn't changed either or both of them could end up dead.”

SEVENTEEN

I made some excuse to Noonan and got off the elevator at the TV station again. He looked much relieved to see the last of me. I didn't go into the newsroom. I didn't start looking for Wally Skeat, who by then would be sitting under the lights doing a pre-broadcast run-through.

At the end of a short corridor, I found the fire-door that led to the central core of the tower. The Pagoda stacked a few exclusive offices one on top of the other beginning about eight storeys below the TV station. Through the core ran all the electrical and plumbing conduits that served the offices, a dumb waiter that serviced the restaurants, as well as an emergency stairway and an elevator which stopped at the office levels. The tourist elevator rose on the outside of the tower from the ticket hall to the TV station, the observation level and the restaurant at the top. To get to the offices it was necessary to take the elevators at the core.

In the centre of the pylon I got for the first time a feeling that I was high above the ground. There was something about the raw concrete floors and stairways, the marks in the concrete left by the forms of the builders, the sound of running water in the conduits, the lack of windows.
I can't put my finger on it. Maybe I was just a little scared.

I walked down eight flights, stopping to correct the dizziness that comes from circular staircases, and the echo of my steps kept rebounding far below as I stood there catching my breath. I didn't look. No good at heights. I didn't like the echo and I fought against turning back. I sometimes think that I'd like to skip over a few pages in my life, the way you skip descriptions of the dawn coming up over the rain-washed landscape in a novel. I felt like I'd arrived at a good place to move ahead.

The fire door opened on a carpeted hallway, curving gently with the circular shape of the tower. I passed a trolley of green garbage bags and mops belonging to the cleaning staff as I carefully moved along the corridor. I came to a glass door:
Syndicated Securities
. That wasn't it. Neither were
Martin, Morrison, Nunamaker and Duffin
, or
Salter-Price Associates
. But I hit pay dirt with
Cataract Vending
. According to Norman Baker, that was the door behind which Tullio Solmi operated.

There was a light burning under the door of Solmi's inner office, although the reception area was dark. The inner office had a blind door to the corridor, a very useful device, especially when it comes between the main entrance and the emergency stairs. It seemed that Solmi had thought of everything. I tried the outer door. It was open, maybe left that way by the cleaning staff. Dark shapes of pinball machines jumped up at me out of the gloom of the
reception area. There was a hall stand with a coat and hat hanging from it; no windows, but one curved wall was covered with heavy draperies. I walked to the inner door and put my ear against the wood. I could hear voices, but I didn't believe what I heard Billie Mason say:

“And no anchovies. I hate anchovies.” On second thought, I decided that it was a good thing to hear. It told me that she was not only unmurdered but that she was reasonably comfortable and in something of a bargaining position.

“Don't get too lonesome,” said another voice moving in the direction of my ear. I skipped over the broadloom, nearly tripped on a raised electrical floor outlet, and dived behind the curtains. I could hear his key in the door. Then I could feel him come into the room through the soles of my feet. I couldn't see a thing until he switched on the lights. My breath was holding itself. He locked the door from his side. “You want single cream or double?” he yelled at the closed door. The answer came back:

“Double. And I'm nearly out of cigarettes.”