smelled a lot better than the dead man in 805. Going back to the office meant having to speak with Kerry Lane, and I wasn’t ready for it, so I told myself I was hungry and walked over to a good sandwich and coffee joint on West 47th Street, to kill time and read the first edition of The Sun.
I took an end stool, which gives you the most counter-space, and spread out my paper. I ordered a tuna on toast, light on the mayo, and found that The Sun was pretty happy:our boys were making their post-D-Day rounds of Northern France and the locals seemed to like them a lot better than the Nazis. Everybody was saying it would all be over within a year. Governor Dewey was making noises about the need for new blood in the White House. I remembered him well from the days when he ran the D.A.’s office, when the cops I knew were saying he’d sell his grandma to make page one in the afternoon. President. That was a laugh. A goddamn ambulance chaser.
I really wanted to soak up the box scores, to follow the exploits of wartime baseball’s one-armed outfielders, and blind, deaf and dumb infielders, but I was trying to figure how I had wandered into a murder in the space of less than two hours. World wars were all very interesting, but the stiff in 805 had me staring into my coffee long before I could drink it. The feeling was unmistakable. I have it on one case a year, maybe every year and a half: I was getting in over my head. Every time I opened a door, someone would topple over with footprints on his face. And then there was Kerry Lane. She was going to call me and ask how it went; I’d tell her Fenton was dead and she’d gasp and I’d try and figure out whether or not she’d been rehearsing that gasp in front of a mirror for the past couple of hours. And if she had known he was dead, why make a sucker out of me for the alibi? But I believed her at 10:30, and if I believed her then—with Fenton already giving the bathroom floor a paint job—I ought to believe her now. So I read the box scores. The St. Louis Browns had shut the Yankees out and Stuffy Stirnweiss went 0 for 4. What was the world coming to, anyway? And what did I care about Stuffy Stirnweiss, who would be off the team when the real Yankees returned from Europe and the Pacific?
A counter woman whose hair was just a little too black for the lines around her eyes smiled at me.
“More coffee?” I don’t look half-bad when I keep my hat on.
“No thanks.” I took a stab at gallantry. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, for starters you could make this war end a little faster. I got two kids over there, with Patton.”
I managed some class: “Well, I’m sure they’ll be home very soon,” and felt very, very proud of myself. I left an extra dime under the coffee cup, folded my paper and got up.
“Mister,” she said and smiled, smiled beautifully, “you left two dimes by mistake.”
“No mistake.”
“It’s a mistake.” She took the other dime and slid it toward me. “You didn’t start the war and you didn’t try to pick me up. Good luck to you.” That was two good people in one day. I was pretty sure it couldn’t last much longer.
It couldn’t. I barely had time to close the office door behind me and throw my hat on the moose head—always a ringer—when the telephone started jumping around my desk. I wasn’t prepared for the voice on the other end.
“Jack LeVine,” came a husky female voice.
“Yes.”
“Hold on please.”
I held. I was connected.
“I’m speaking to Jack LeVine?” asked a man. His voice was a lot less husky than the girl’s had been. I wished she had hung on a little longer.
“You are. Now let me play. I’m speaking to—?”
He laughed, a tinkling laugh like Chinese bells swaying in the breeze outside a cerise bedroom with lots of mirrors, a zebra rug, and the most divine four-poster bed.
“God, but you’re an amusing guy. I’m Warren Butler, the producer.”
“I’m honored. What can I do for you,
I took an end stool, which gives you the most counter-space, and spread out my paper. I ordered a tuna on toast, light on the mayo, and found that The Sun was pretty happy:our boys were making their post-D-Day rounds of Northern France and the locals seemed to like them a lot better than the Nazis. Everybody was saying it would all be over within a year. Governor Dewey was making noises about the need for new blood in the White House. I remembered him well from the days when he ran the D.A.’s office, when the cops I knew were saying he’d sell his grandma to make page one in the afternoon. President. That was a laugh. A goddamn ambulance chaser.
I really wanted to soak up the box scores, to follow the exploits of wartime baseball’s one-armed outfielders, and blind, deaf and dumb infielders, but I was trying to figure how I had wandered into a murder in the space of less than two hours. World wars were all very interesting, but the stiff in 805 had me staring into my coffee long before I could drink it. The feeling was unmistakable. I have it on one case a year, maybe every year and a half: I was getting in over my head. Every time I opened a door, someone would topple over with footprints on his face. And then there was Kerry Lane. She was going to call me and ask how it went; I’d tell her Fenton was dead and she’d gasp and I’d try and figure out whether or not she’d been rehearsing that gasp in front of a mirror for the past couple of hours. And if she had known he was dead, why make a sucker out of me for the alibi? But I believed her at 10:30, and if I believed her then—with Fenton already giving the bathroom floor a paint job—I ought to believe her now. So I read the box scores. The St. Louis Browns had shut the Yankees out and Stuffy Stirnweiss went 0 for 4. What was the world coming to, anyway? And what did I care about Stuffy Stirnweiss, who would be off the team when the real Yankees returned from Europe and the Pacific?
A counter woman whose hair was just a little too black for the lines around her eyes smiled at me.
“More coffee?” I don’t look half-bad when I keep my hat on.
“No thanks.” I took a stab at gallantry. “What can I do for you?”
“Well, for starters you could make this war end a little faster. I got two kids over there, with Patton.”
I managed some class: “Well, I’m sure they’ll be home very soon,” and felt very, very proud of myself. I left an extra dime under the coffee cup, folded my paper and got up.
“Mister,” she said and smiled, smiled beautifully, “you left two dimes by mistake.”
“No mistake.”
“It’s a mistake.” She took the other dime and slid it toward me. “You didn’t start the war and you didn’t try to pick me up. Good luck to you.” That was two good people in one day. I was pretty sure it couldn’t last much longer.
It couldn’t. I barely had time to close the office door behind me and throw my hat on the moose head—always a ringer—when the telephone started jumping around my desk. I wasn’t prepared for the voice on the other end.
“Jack LeVine,” came a husky female voice.
“Yes.”
“Hold on please.”
I held. I was connected.
“I’m speaking to Jack LeVine?” asked a man. His voice was a lot less husky than the girl’s had been. I wished she had hung on a little longer.
“You are. Now let me play. I’m speaking to—?”
He laughed, a tinkling laugh like Chinese bells swaying in the breeze outside a cerise bedroom with lots of mirrors, a zebra rug, and the most divine four-poster bed.
“God, but you’re an amusing guy. I’m Warren Butler, the producer.”
“I’m honored. What can I do for you,
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