Walk a Black Wind Read Free Page A

apartment.
    A thin, dusty light filtered over shiny, tasteless furniture of the kind that comes with good furnished apartments and tells you nothing about the occupants. The living room was large, there was a full kitchen, a dining room, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms—$400 a month, at least.
    One bedroom was cluttered, with two closets full of clothes for a young woman who went many places but had little taste beyond showing off what had to be a sensual figure. Make-up was thick as a forest on a dressing table, the bed was covered by a spread, and a small desk looked barely used. Paycheck stubs showed that this was the bedroom of the roommate, Celia Bazer. She worked for Bel-Mod Fashions, Inc., and was paid too much to be anything less than a model.
    The second bedroom was bare and spartan. There was no make-up anywhere, not even in the bathroom, and fewer than ten dresses in the two closets. The closets were oddly segregated. One held three sleek cocktail dresses, some high heels, and an evening wrap. The other had only bright, loose, casual dresses, slacks, sandals, mannish shirts, a pair of red-stained jeans. All airy and informal, with a sense of youth and independence. The bed was covered with another spread, and there was the same small desk—but used.
    The desk was littered with guides to New York, theater programs, nightclub napkins, and paycheck stubs from the Emerald Room. The checks were small, Francesca Crawford had made little money. Nothing went back farther than three weeks. The bureau drawers told me no more. No slips, no girdles, no brassieres, and only four pairs of bikini underpants—a modern girl. The only jewelry was some silver and turquoise pieces—earrings, a necklace, two bracelets. Good, handmade Indian jewelry, but new and shiny, and with nothing to show where it had come from.
    As if Francesca Crawford had been on another planet since leaving home three months ago. Unless there had been some clue in her missing handbag. Had the bag been taken to hide where she had been, what she had been doing? Or was it simple robbery? Or, maybe, to suggest a simple robbery?
    I turned to the bed. A killer can often become careless at the instant of killing, leave some clue. I pulled back the spread, and got a surprise. There was no blood on the bed.
    I went back to the roommate’s bedroom, stripped off the cover from that bed. The blood was on this mattress—and a deep tear where the long knife had passed through the dead girl. Francesca Crawford had been killed in the wrong bed.
    The super of the building was a small man who looked me up and down, stared at my duffel coat and missing arm. He had a belligerent air, as if he would belch in your face to prove that he took no guff from anyone. I asked him if Francesca Crawford had had many callers.
    â€œYou a cop? With that arm?”
    â€œPrivate,” I said. “Her family wants to know how it happened, what she was doing, who her men were.”
    His narrow face almost sparkled. The kind of animal thrilled by secondhand pleasures, other people’s pain. He rubbed at his jaw. “Said her name was Martin here. Not bad-looking except for that scar, but a funny one. Alone most of the time, never talked much. I had ideas about her and the roommate, only the Bazer kid had plenty of men.”
    â€œFrancesca Crawford didn’t have men?”
    â€œI only seen two in three weeks, then just a couple times. No parties, no gang, no steady like most girl kids.”
    â€œWho were the two you saw?”
    â€œOne guy forty or so, Dago-looking, but real dressed up, Gray hair, small. Never saw him with her, but he went up a couple times, asked once if she was home.”
    â€œThe other one?”
    â€œBig, blond guy, maybe thirty,” he said, and his eyes were excited. “Saw him the night she got killed, around five P.M. He asked for Bazer first, then the Crawford girl. Wanted to know if I knew where they were. I