A Long Line of Dead Men

"Yes, and he was very steady, very reliable," he said. "That's why I was inclined to give him a break when he had the first incident."

"The drinking."

"Yes. He must have been ashamed, because he didn't even offer an argument in his own defense, just hung his head waiting to be fired. But his record was excellent, and he'd been with us for over seven months, so I gave him that second chance." He frowned. "The next time, of course, there was an official complaint called in. I had to let him go."

Seven months. Waiting, biding his time.

I picked up the application. "I'll need a copy of this," I said. "Is there a place in the neighborhood where I can get it copied?" He said he had a desktop copier and would run it for me. He went into another room, came back with the copy but held on to it for a moment.

He said, "I'm not sure I understand. If Shorter knows something, if he's disappeared in order to escape from the man who killed Watson"- that was the explanation I'd devised for him- "shouldn't the police be brought into the picture?"

"If it comes to that," I said. "But it looks as though Shorter's been living under an assumed name, and that he might have invented most of what's on that application. If I can spare him the embarrassment of official attention from the police-"

"Yes, of course," he said. "By all means."

He didn't exist.

He'd carried a New York State driver's license, and its number was listed on his job application. But the DMV never heard of him, and the license number he'd written down was unassigned. The Social Security number was real, but the account was that of a State Farm insurance agent in Emporia, Kansas, whose name was Bennett Gunnarson, not James Shorter.

It would have made my life easier if Banszak had fingerprinted his employees, even if he'd done nothing with the prints but file them away. Earlier, I'd left TJ on guard at the rooming house and cabbed down to the Flatiron Building and back, borrowing a fingerprint kit from Wally Donn at Reliable. Before I left Shorter's room I had fogged the telephone receiver with my breath the way Banszak had fogged his glasses. I hadn't seen any prints then, but sometimes they show up better when you dust for them. And the telephone wasn't the only surface in the room that would hold a print.

Back on East Ninety-fourth, I dusted the phone, the window, the washbasin, the headboard and footboard, the switchplate, and everything else that looked at all promising. There was nothing, not even smudges.

"He cleaned up," I told TJ. "He deliberately wiped every surface in the room."

"The man be neat."

"The man's a killer," I said. "He killed Alan Watson back in February. A few days ago he killed Helen Watson, and- Jesus."

"Say what?"

"Helen Watson," I said. "One time I was talking to him and he asked me if I'd reached Helen Watson yet. How did he know her first name? He never heard it from me. Jesus, how long was he stalking them?"

I had my answer now.

He'd been stalking Alan Watson for a minimum of seven months, from the time he'd started work with Queensboro-Corona to the night he seized his opportunity and stuck a knife in the commodity broker's heart. God knows how many opportunities he must have had in all that time, but he'd been in no hurry, he'd been content to bide his time, waiting, letting the anticipation build.

Then, when he finally struck, he'd allowed himself the extra satisfaction of discovering the body and phoning it in to the police, like a firebug coming back to watch the firemen battle the blaze he'd set. And then, remarkably, he'd stayed on the job another six weeks before he could contrive to get fired.

So I knew that he liked to take his time, and I knew, too, that he could strike quickly if he wanted to. I'd seen him on Friday night, and a day later Watson's widow was dead. A couple of days after that, Gerard Billings was shot to death in the back of a cab.

Oh, he was slick. But who the hell was he?

I called Ray Gruliow, brought him up to date. "I feel like a damn fool," I said. "I found the son of a bitch and then I lost him."

"You didn't know what you'd found."

"No. He knew and I didn't. He was playing with me, the bastard. He was the cat and I was a particularly dimwitted mouse. You want to know what I did? I took the son of a bitch to AA meetings."

"You didn't."

"Well, he'd been fired for drinking on the job, and he was leading a shabby life, and he looked for all the world like a drunk getting ready to bottom out. I couldn't see any reason not to talk about the program, and when I did he did a good job of seeming interested but wary. I have to say he's a natural when it comes to the principle of anonymity. He's the most anonymous person I ever met. I still don't know who the hell he is."

"But you've seen him. You sat across a table and talked to him."

"Right," I said. "I know what he looks like." I described Shorter in detail. "Now we both know what he looks like," I said. "Does he sound like anybody you know?"