The Eye: A Novel of Suspense Read Free

and private man; Oxman had worked with him eight years now, but he still didn’t know him well, still didn’t understand what made Artie run. A good cop, though. Efficient, intuitive, disciplined. He also had a dry sense of humor and a penchant for needling people in a mild fashion, as if that was his way of paying back the white majority for past injustices. Like calling Oxman by his given names. He knew Oxman hated the names his parents had saddled him with, that he preferred to be addressed as Ox or E.L. But Tobin never missed an opportunity to call him Elliot Leroy.
    “Why would a psycho start killing people on one particular city block?” Oxman asked him.
    Tobin shrugged. “Do psychos need reasons?”
    “Yes. They don’t have to be rational reasons, but a psycho always has some sort of purpose. You know that, Artie.”
    “Maybe he lives on the block and hates his neighbors.”
    “Then why kill an outsider like Simmons?”
    “Could be Simmons used to live on the block,” Tobin said, “or had a connection with one or both previous victims.”
    “That’s an angle you’ll want to check out,” Manders said. “You’re handling the other two shootings, you get this one too. It’s your baby; deliver it.”
    Oxman asked, “Are Gaines and Holroyd still over on Ninety-eighth?”
    “Yeah. But they’re due back any minute. Wait until they get here so they can brief you; then I want you on the case full time. You know how the damn media is. They’ll turn this into a scare circus, sure as hell.”
    Manders clumped away and disappeared inside his office. When the door closed behind him Tobin said, “‘It’s your baby; deliver it.’ Smiley’s in rare form this morning.”
    “He’s always in rare form.”
    “So what do you think, Elliot Leroy?”
    “I think I’m going to get a cup of coffee,” Oxman said. “Then I think we ought to go over what we’ve got on the previous shootings.”
    Tobin sighed. “I just love psycho cases.”
    Oxman poured his coffee, laced it with milk and sugar, and took it to his desk. Tobin came over with the reports they had written on the first two West Ninety-eighth Street homicides. Methodically, while they waited for Gaines and Holroyd, they went over the material that Oxman already knew by heart, looking for some sort of common denominator.
    First victim: Charles Unger. Retired grocer, Caucasian, age sixty-five, widower, native of Manhattan, resident of apartment building at 1250 West Ninety-eighth. Found near the mouth of an alley between 1250 and 1252 by a passing patrol car, at eight A.M., September 7. Shot once in the chest at close range with a .32 caliber weapon. No witnesses, nothing in the way of evidence on the scene. Neighbors and relatives of the deceased stated that he was well-liked, had no apparent enemies. Robbery ruled out as a motive; Unger’s wallet, containing fourteen dollars and three major credit cards, untouched in his pocket.
    Second victim: Peter Cheng. Import-export dealer, Chinese, age forty-three, unmarried, native of Hong Kong (no relatives in New York metropolitan area), resident of apartment building at 1279 West Ninety-eighth. Found in a doorway on Riverside Drive, just around the corner from Ninety-eighth, by the driver of a newspaper delivery truck at six forty-five A.M., September 15. Shot once between the eyes at close range with the same .32 caliber weapon. No witnesses, nothing in the way of evidence on the scene. Friends and business associates of the deceased stated that he was a hard-nosed businessman but had no apparent enemies. Suggestion that Cheng was a homosexual, but no verification. Check into his business dealings negative; his import-export firm was respectable and moderately profitable. No apparent connection with Charles Unger, no indication that the two men even knew each other.
    Zero. No common denominator except for the fact that the two victims lived on the same block of West Ninety-eighth Street.
    And now, with