The Eye: A Novel of Suspense Page 8

  “You don’t know the half of how good I am, sweets,” Marco said. There was a leer in his voice, but Michele didn’t react to it. She was into her role now. Her hands were steady again and the knot of fear in her stomach had diminished.

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “I’ve never heard you or your combo play.”

  “You don’t know what you’ve been missing. Come on down to Jazz Heaven in the Village; that’s where we’re blowing now. I’ll fix you up with a table right in front.”

  “Well … maybe I’ll do that.”

  He grinned again. “Hope you get the part today. Got to pay the rent, right? And you haven’t worked in a while.”

  “I’m not hurting financially. My folks send me money from time to time.”

  “Sure they do,” Marco said, grinning. “Catch you later.”

  “Later,” she agreed.

  He gave her a mock salute and went past her down the stoop. Michele let out an inaudible sigh, put her back to the street, and fumbled in her purse again for her key.

  Upstairs in her spartan apartment, she put the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. She had handled the situation with Marco fairly well, she thought. She was a good actress. It was maddening that audition after audition the past three months had come to nothing after the promising early stages of her career.

  She remembered what Susan Sarandon had told her. Two years ago she had landed a small part in an off-Broadway show starring Susan—Michele and the famous actress had become friendly enough to be on a first-name basis—and Susan had assured her that she had more than enough talent to make it on the stage. All it took was one break, Susan had said; talent would take care of the rest. Michele was convinced that this was true, that all that stood between her and her career goals was one lucky break. Wasn’t that the history of every successful actress?

  The fact that circumstance had forced her to become a thief, then, was merely a compromise. It had been her only alternative, a necessary evil. How else could she maintain this apartment, keep herself in close proximity to the producers and directors, persevere until that one lucky break finally happened? Prostitution was unthinkable. And a menial job would have devoured her time and led nowhere.

  Marco Polio would never understand these things, of course. Neither would her family—or the police. Especially the police. But, then, why should they even try? It wasn’t their job to delve into the psychology of crime or the complexity of a person’s dreams. Theirs was a world of stark, clear rules that one either obeyed or disobeyed. A world of consequences.

  Restlessly, Michele emptied the groceries from the bag and then poured a glass of milk. She didn’t have another audition today; she had lied to Marco. But what if the phone had rung while she was out shopping? She hadn’t wanted to go out, but she’d been hungry and there hadn’t been anything in the fridge. She hadn’t been gone more than twenty minutes. Still, her agent could have phoned with word of another casting call …

  She hurried into the living room, to where the telephone sat on the Chinese chest a former boyfriend had given her. The receiver was in her hand, and she was just starting to dial her agent’s number, when somebody rang the doorbell.

  The sudden sound made her jump, then made her frown. Now who could that be? Marco again, come back to bother her? She put the telephone handset down, reluctantly, and crossed to the door. There was a peephole in it with a magnifying lens that let you see most of the hallway outside; she put one eye to it, squinting.

  A sandy-haired man in his forties, dressed in a business suit, stood there. She had never seen him before. How had he gotten into the building? Visitors were supposed to ring the bell from the stoop outside …

  “Yes?” she called through the door. “What is it?”

  The man drew something from his jacket pocket, held it up to the outer lens of the peephole so she could see what it was. A badge—a policeman’s badge. “Detective Oxman, Twenty-fourth Precinct,” he said. “I’d like to have a few words with you, Miss Butler, if you don’t mind.”

  Fear sparked in her. The police! Had they found out somehow about the ruby ring from Bloomingdale’s? Was the detective here to arrest her?

  “Miss Butler?”

  “What do you want? Why are you here?”

  “I’m investigating the homicide on Thursday night,” he said. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  Relief came to her with the same abruptness as the fear. The shooting—of course. The police would be questioning residents of the block; they had done it before, after the previous two murders. She hadn’t been thinking clearly. Guilty conscience. She had nothing to fear from this detective, nothing at all.

  Michele composed herself. Another role, she thought, that’s all it is; another part to play. She opened the chain lock and the dead-bolt lock, arranged her face into an expression of calm concern, and opened the door. “Come in, officer. I’m sorry I took so long.”

  “Quite all right,” Detective Oxman said. He came in, glancing around at the Oriental prints on the walls, the Chinese chest, the bead curtains she had put up as a room divider, and then turned to face her as she closed the door. “Sorry to bother you. I came by yesterday, but you weren’t home.”

  “No, I was out all day. I had an audition down in the Village. I’m an actress, you see.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes. Won’t you sit down?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can I get you anything? Some coffee?”

  “No, nothing, thanks.”

  He waited until she had seated herself on the couch and then sat down in one of the chairs. His questions were simple and direct—had she seen or heard anything unusual on Thursday night, had she noticed any strangers on the block, had she noticed anyone acting oddly, had she been acquainted with any of the three victims—and as she answered them she found herself relaxing. She wouldn’t have thought she could sit here so calmly talking to a policeman the day after stealing a valuable ruby ring. It was training and talent that allowed her to do it.

  I really am good, she thought once. I really am.

  Susan had been right. She was going to make it. One day the lucky break would come and all her roles would be on a stage, behind the footlights, instead of out here in the real world. And when that happened, all the other things, the thefts and the guilt and the fear, would be forgotten segments in the part of Michele Butler, struggling actress, that she had once and for too long played.

  10:50 A.M. — ART TOBIN

  The undercover cop’s name was Jack Kennebank. He was in his late twenties, he had long hair and a bushy beard, be was wearing dirty Levi’s and a dirty sweatshirt with Fordham across the chest, and he smelled. As soon as Tobin sat down across from him in the cafeteria on Amsterdam, the smell came wafting over the table, a mixture of body odor, bad breath, and the gamy clothing. It offended Tobin, making his nose twitch to the point where he began breathing through his mouth.

  The smell was one reason why he didn’t like Kennebank, but it wasn’t the main one. The main reason was that the kid was a hot dog. Kennebank had been on the force six years, the last two in plainclothes working undercover assignments, and already he’d been involved in three shooting scrapes, a knifing, a bar brawl, and a motorcycle chase after a drug dealer. And he had killed two men in the line of duty. He thought he was Supercop, a goddamn evil-smelling one-man crusade against crime. He attracted trouble the way California produce attracted the medfly.

  Tobin hated hot dogs. He hated extremism of any kind, and Supercops were extremists; they rocked the boat, they thundered and blundered and eventually got themselves killed or maimed, and along the way they made life difficult for cops who did a better job working within the system. He wished Lieutenant Smiley had assigned somebody else to the undercover job. As it was, with Kennebank on the street, there was no telling what might happen. If anything bad went down, it was Tobin and Elliot Leroy who would take the flak; they were in charge of the investigation and that
made them responsible.

  Kennebank sat looking at Tobin steadily, waiting, very serious. At least he wasn’t brash and flip, a smart-ass; he knew how to keep his mouth shut and his ears open. The problem was with his head. Get that straightened out, Kennebank might have the potential to be a good cop. If he lived long enough.

  Tobin said, “You smell like a garbage bin. What’s the idea, Jack?”

  Kennebank shrugged. “Street image. I’m supposed to be an addict, right?”

  “If the situation warrants it. But you don’t have to be so obvious. Mostly straight people on that block, Jack; they see you looking like that, get a whiff of you, they’ll run the other way. How’re you going to find out anything if people won’t talk to you?”

  “I thought we were after a psycho,” Kennebank said, frowning.

  “We probably are. What does that have to do with the way you’re dressed? The way you smell?”

  “Well, I figured it has to be somebody shady. Somebody wiped out on drugs, maybe. I can get into the scene better this way, make a connection on the street. Hey, I’ve done it dozens of times before.”

  Tobin stared at him. These hot dogs—Jesus Christ! Kennebank was a head case, all right; what brains he had were stuffed up his ass. Every crime in the city was drug-related, as far as he was concerned. And everybody who blew somebody else away had underworld connections.

  But if there was one thing Tobin had learned in his thirty-two years on the force, it was patience. He said patiently, “The psycho could be anybody, Jack. Anybody on that block, anybody in Manhattan. A little old lady pulling the trigger because she thinks she sees Martians.”

  “Then you don’t think the shootings are drug-related?”

  “We haven’t turned up anything to support that idea. You read the reports, didn’t you? Nothing about drugs in the background of any of the victims.”

  “The psycho could still be a hype,” Kennebank insisted.

  Some of Tobin’s patience was starting to slip; he made an effort to hang onto it. What we have here, he thought, is a reversal of racial stereotypes. Intelligent black man, the authority figure, trying to talk to a stubborn, slow-witted white menial—a white nigger, by God. White niggers were the worst kind. Tobin had met a lot of them in his time; he knew all about them, he knew enough to write a book called The White Nigger in New York City. Only problem was, who would be willing to publish it?

  “If you’ve got preconceived ideas about this case, Jack,” he said slowly, “maybe you’re not the man for the job. Maybe I ought to ask the lieutenant to send somebody else in.”

  Kennebank frowned again and looked wounded. “I don’t have any preconceived ideas.”

  “Then how come you keep harping about drugs?”

  “Hey, I’m not harping about drugs. I only thought—”

  “Don’t think, Jack,” Tobiri said. “Just do what you’re told and don’t make waves. No hot-dogging.”

  Kennebank bristled. “I’m not a hot dog.”

  Yes, you are, Tobin thought. Big white hot dog wrapped up in a Manhattan bun, and one of these days somebody is liable to take a bite out of you. But he didn’t say it. He said, “Just stay out of trouble. If you stumble on anything to do with drugs, make a report; no arrests. We’re after a psycho who shot three men and that’s all we’re after. Understood?”

  “Yeah,” Kennebank said. “Understood.”

  “Good. Now where do you live?”

  “The lieutenant made arrangements for a vacant apartment at twelve-forty West Ninety-eighth—”

  “I know that; that’s not what I meant. Where do you live?”

  Another frown. “Down in the Village, on Perry. Why?”

  “Because I want you to grab a cab, go there and take a bath and change your clothes. Trim that beard a little too. Inconspicuous, Jack, that’s how I want you to look.”

  Kennebank didn’t like the idea. Tobin could see him stewing about it, maybe thinking of registering a complaint with Lieutenant Smiley. But he wouldn’t do it. He had ambitions, and he knew that the lieutenant had given Tobin and Elliot Leroy carte blanche on this case. Tobin watched him struggling his way to an understanding of that, an acceptance of it. The bearded face smoothed into a neutral expression and Kennebank shrugged.

  “All right,” he said. “If that’s the way you want it.”

  “That’s the way I want it. The way I also want it is for you to contact either me or Oxman if you come up with anything promising. Don’t pursue it yourself until you check with us. Don’t confront anybody, don’t identify yourself to anybody. Eyes and ears—that’s all you’re on the block for.”

  “Okay. Clear enough.”

  Tobin nodded. It better be, he thought. It just better be.

  When the hot dog was gone, Tobin got a cup of coffee and took it to a different table to avoid the lingering after-smell Kennebank had left behind. He still didn’t like the idea of Kennebank being on the block, cleaned up or not. He’d have preferred somebody else, but Lieutenant Smiley had told him earlier that nobody else was available. Kennebank hadn’t been in the squadroom then and hadn’t shown up by the time Tobin left for West Ninety-eighth; that was why Tobin had met him here at the cafeteria. If Kennebank had been around, they could have gotten the clothing thing settled at the precinct house.

  Wasted time. Tobin hated that, too. There were a lot of things he hated, he realized—too many things, maybe. But he kept them all locked up inside, hidden from the world. His father had taught him that. His father was a man who had really hated: the white world and the white prejudice that forced him to work as a janitor, to live in a roach-infested Harlem tenement. Tobin hated those things too, but instead of letting the hatred eat him up inside, the way his father had done, letting it turn him into a bitter drunk and a dead man at forty-nine, he had set out to do something about it. Joined the NAACP, joined the police force. Make the changes from within, that was his philosophy. There were some who had accused him of being an Uncle Tom, selling out to the white Establishment, but that was the furthest thing from the truth. He had never been a Tom, never once bent under the prejudice, never once compromised himself or his beliefs. He had used the white Establishment, made it bend to his benefit and, by extension, the benefit of his race. That was what made him a proud man and a good cop.

  He finished his coffee, still worrying a little over that jerk-off Kennebank, and then left the cafeteria and headed back to rendezvous with Elliot Leroy.

  THE COLLIER TAPES

  Who am I?

  Who is Lewis B. Collier?

  Someday, perhaps, after my death—for even gods must eventually perish—these tapes will become a matter of public record. It is with that possibility in mind that I now offer the essential answer to the question of who I am.

  To begin with, we must consider the famous insane and now dead American poet, X. I will call him only X. All poets are X. They find that out slowly and painfully, but I divined it from the beginning and exercised caution.

  X began his academic life as a twenty-two-year-old instructor at Harvard, and within three years he became a tenured associate professor. That was impressive, especially since X did not even have a graduate degree. Of course, that was in the forties, when things in academia were somewhat looser.

  Five years later, under rather strained circumstances, X resigned and went to the University of Michigan as an associate professor. With him went the redheaded bitch temptress who had prompted his troubles at Harvard. At Michigan, X missed tenure by an eyelash after three years of probation and subsequently went to the Iowa Writers Workshop, again as an associate professor. Drink had by this time begun to affect him in ways tragic and visible, and the redhead had been traded for a blonde, two brunettes, and finally a bearded graduate student. X left Iowa and went to the University of Alabama on a three-year contract. At the end of that time, and of several hundred bottles of whiskey, he traveled to Drexel on a one-year adjunct. And after that, he went to Colby College as the assist
ant to the head of the writing program.

  By this time X was no longer young or a poet of promise. He had returned to his two true loves—another redhead and Bombay gin.

  In the early sixties, after his thunderous dismissal from Colby, X ended up teaching in the extension division of New York University, a night course in creative writing. And then—ah, this many people might remember—X ended his descent in spectacular fashion, immolating himself and his woman in a Times Square hotel.

  The point is, I learned from X; I vowed to become a poet of a different sort. I thought I understood the problem. If you stayed at the adjunct level you had no heights from which to fall and you tended to make less trouble for yourself; also, you were outside the politics of the department and, unlike X, your social life could be your own business.

  So I obtained my Master’s Degree and settled into what I liked to think of as the underside of academia. I had slight standards, but those standards were absolute. And that was the key. X’s problem had been that he was a promising poet and a classic alcoholic, a sexual adventurer of catholicity if not precision; he had adhered to no standards, not in his rhyme scheme, not in his sexual or his professional life, and at last it had destroyed him.

  I spent my days marking freshman themes written by disadvantaged youths with burning eyes who were fixated on computer programming, and I worked on my unpublished novel while I lived modestly, and I thought I had my life under control.

  I made two mistakes, however.

  One was not foreseeing the withdrawal of federal funding of many of the programs through which I was hired. The other mistake was Darlene.

  The contraction of the universities I might have dealt with, but Darlene was beyond my powers to cope. She was an intense girl with a yearning for self-improvement of the creative sort. Soon after our marriage she became pregnant, had an abortion, and then informed me ex post facto of these two occurrences. She also informed me that I was a pig and a liar and an exploiter, among other things, and left me and the New York metropolitan area itself to live in a feminist collective in San Francisco. Years later, the collective became a news story in the Times because it had been found to harbor several sixties fugitives who had operated a bomb factory. Darlene was among those arrested. But that was her problem, not mine.