The Long Fall

I let those last words hang in the air because it occurred to me that the cop should have identified the illiterate PI by then. And if Kitteridge knew who he was, then he also knew he was dead.

“Yeah,” the detective said. “You got any more on him?”

“He hasn’t called me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Anything else you remember about him?”

“No.”

“No,” Kitteridge said, echoing me ominously.

“I guess I better be going,” I said.

“Where to?”

“A case.”

“Connected?”

“I sure hope not.”

“Okay, then,” Kitteridge said. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

I wasn’t looking forward to that, either.

Ê€„

45

It was a nice day and I was loath to go back into the close atmosphere with Hush. So I went to a deli on Seventh Avenue and had pastrami on rye with raw onions and hot French mustard. I didn’t order fries, but as long as they came with the meal I felt an obligation to eat them.

I got back to the Lincoln just before four. My knock on the darkened glass of the limo was answered by the click of the locks releasing.

I climbed into the backseat and Hush handed me the laptop.

“I had to power it up with the cigarette lighter,” he said. “It should have a few hours now.”

And so we sat, the semi-reformed hit man and me.

“IT COSTS EIGHTEEN thousand dollars to make a body disappear in Manhattan or most of the boroughs,” Hush said a little over an hour later. “Some parts of New Jersey, too. There’s a discount for Staten Island. You kill somebody in Staten Island and it’s only fifteen thousand. Guy named Digger can be anywhere in the city in two hours or less.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“I thought maybe you’d like to know,” he replied dispassionately. “You’ve got to be in some serious trouble if you called on me. Serious trouble might need serious help. With somebody like me on the case, Digger just naturally jumps to mind.”

“I don’t need him,” I said with as much certainty as I could muster.

AT A QUARTER to five I took a small briefcase and made my way toward the back of the building, where I was supposed to meet Timothy Moore’s blackmailer.

I went to apartment C on the fifth floor and turned on my second computer. I tuned in to the boring transmissions from two floors below and settled in.

“I’m in,” I said into the Bluetooth phone hooked around my left ear.

“I hear you,” Hush replied.

And for the next hour or so nothing happened. I sat in the darkened room with my screen focused on another, even darker, room.

It was eerily peaceful sitting there in the gloom, staring at an image of darkness. There was no sound to distract me and no image to divert my attention. I was wide awake, fully aware, but in a stasis of sorts. I wasn’t thinking about anything, and that was a continual relief, like the monotonous beauty of a cascading waterfall.

“THERE’S THIS BIG guy who looks kinda familiar and the one you showed me the picture of walking up the stairs,” Hush said at seven minutes past six.

“Timothy Moore?”

“If that’s the picture you showed me.”

A few minutes passed and a bright flare burned its way into the room on my computer screen. Two murky figures were revealed by the backwash of radiance from the big utility flashlight. One of the figures closed the door, turned on a portable fluorescent lantern, and then doused the flashlight. There was Timothy Moore in a black, long-sleeved T-shirt and black pants, along with a bigger guy, also in dark clothes. They looked around the room, seemed satisfied at what they didn’t find, and then set up little aluminum-and-nylon stools facing the door. The big guy then took a black sack from a shoulder strap hanging on his left side and began to assemble a stripped-down rifle. I couldn’t tell the caliber because the fiber-optic lens wasn’t that clear. It was like watching an old-time TV show that had been captured on ancient decaying videotape.

The men were speaking, but my bug didn’t come with a microphone. I didn’t need sound to gauge their intent, however.

“What’s happening in there, LT?” Hush asked.

I told him.

“You got thirty-six thousand dollars?”

“No.”

“Wanna borrow it?”

“No.”

“Well, come on down,” he said. “Let’s go get us some steaks.”

“I want to wait and follow ’em,” I said.

“No need. I remember the big guy. His name is LouBob Georgias. He used to do work with the unions.”

“You know where to find him?”

“If he’s in the life, I can find him any hour of the day or night.”

“Okay. I’m comin’ down.”

ON CENTRAL PARK WEST near Seventy-second there was a steakhouse called Riff’s that I’d never heard of. They had bone-in rib eyes that were aged for forty-five days. I ordered a scotch and soda to wash it down. Hush had plain water with no ice to accompany his steak and baked potato.

We hadn’t talked much on the way up, nor did we speak through most of the meal.

“So tell me about this LouBob,” I said after we’d both refused dessert.

“A brawler,” Hush said. “Made his way in by getting into fights. I never took him for a pro.”

“How do you know him?”