The Thomas Berryman Number

“The way I see it,” he turned to me when we reached the stone wall, “it’s twenty-five dollars for me. Twenty-five for the super.”

I didn’t quite believe what he’d said. I brought up the concern he’d shown about Horn.

“Whether I’m concerned or whether I’m not,” he waved off my objection, “you want your peek upstairs. The money’s its own separate thing. I see how it can help Mr. Horn, all right, and it can help me too.”

I let the argument drop and I counted out five ten-dollar bills for Cooper. He thanked me in a polite, New York-doorman way. He wasn’t from Kentucky, I thought—not anymore.

“You’re going to take me up there yourself,” I told the little man.

Leroy Cooper was making a lot of throat-clearing and sniffling noises. He was having trouble unlocking the heavy green door marked with a gold 10D.

The strong-box door finally opened, and I was looking across a long room, all the way up Central Park to 110th Street. It was a spectacular view of bright woods, narrow roads, even a few dark ponds.

The apartment itself was weighted down with heavy wood furniture and hanging plants. It was conspicuously neat and clean.

“Maid comes two, three times a week. Ears’la Libscomb,” Cooper said. “Anybody else comes,” he cautioned me with a stiff outstretched finger, “

you’re

a burglar.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled. “I thought I might be able to count on you.”

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he said anyway. His knobby, black hands were visibly shaking, but he was trying to look arrogant. He was totally confused, I decided.

He slowly, noiselessly closed the door and I was alone in Thomas Berryman’s apartment.

Feeling more than a little unreal, I set right to work.

I started with a quick tour of the place.

Besides the airy living room, there were two large bedrooms. There was an eat-in kitchen and another large room being used as a study. I walked along flinging open closets, pulling out drawers, making quite an arbitrary mess of things.

I found a Walther automatic in the master bedroom, but there were no other guns anywhere.

There were photographs of an exquisite, dark-haired girl over a fireplace in the bedroom. She was an Irisher … There were also black-and-white photographs and paintings of

Last Picture Show

western towns all over the walls. But there were no pictures of Thomas Berryman.

Only clues about him.

Blouses and Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent suits next to hunting wear from Abercrombie’s. Boots from Neiman-Marcus. Givenchy colognes. A rugged-looking jacket made of the good, soft leather used for horse equipage.

The second bedroom seemed to be some kind of guest room with bath.

It was all set up like a room at the Plaza Hotel. Fresh untouched Turkish towels and linen. Neutrogena soap still in its black wrapper. An unused tube of Close-up that I opened for candy purposes.

The study was full of books and cigars, and also one of the few things I’d specifically been looking for.

It was a fat, red book published by Random House. The maid or someone had put it upside down on one of the bookshelves. The book was called

Jiminy

and it was Jimmie Horn’s autobiography.

Close beside

Jiminy

were four other books containing articles on Horn:

Sambo; The Young Bloods; Black Consciousness;

and

Re-Nig.

My next interesting discovery was three photographs. They were wrapped up in tissue paper and squirreled away in a bottom desk drawer.

One of them showed a well-dressed blond man who seemed to be signaling for a cab on a crowded, glittery street. The blond man was in crisp, sharp focus.

The second picture was of the same blond man turned toward a street hustler this time. The second man wore bluejean biballs with no shirt, and a bluejean cap with a peak. The blond man’s eyes were half-closed and his mouth was open in a capital O. It looked like a candid comedy picture.

The final shot was the blond man again, but standing beside Ben Toy. This Ben Toy weighed twenty to thirty pounds more than when I’d seen him at the hospital. He was physically impressive to look at. Behind the two men was a white municipal building, a library or courthouse. The blond man seemed to be pointing right at the camera.

I was certain that he was Harley John Wynn.

Soon after I looked at the pictures, I heard a loud creaking noise inside the apartment. I looked across the room, and saw that the front door was slowly opening. I was helpless to do anything but watch it.

First a hat, then Leroy Cooper’s face appeared in a foot-wide crack. “How long you gonna be?” he complained. “Damn, man, you’re, taking too long for this.”

I said nothing to Cooper. I felt as though my skull had been shattered by someone swinging a heavy metal bar. Somehow, the experience had translated into nausea too.