Make Room! Make Room!(36)

“Give me a lift,” Andy said. “I’m half cooked.” He took the doorman’s hand and scrambled up. The lobby was dim and cool after the sun-blasted heat of the moat. He wiped at his face with his handkerchief. “Is there any place where we can talk—where I can sit down?”

“In the guardroom, sir, just follow me.”

There were two men there; the one in building uniform jumped to his feet when they came in. The other was Tab. “Get on the door, Newton,” the doorman ordered. “You want to go with him, Tab?”

Tab glanced at the detective. “Sure, Charlie,” he said, and followed the guard out.

“We got some water here,” the doorman said. “Want a glass?”

“Great,” Andy said, dropping into a chair. He took the plastic beaker and drained half of it, then slowly sipped the rest. Facing him was a gray-tinted window that looked out into the lobby; he couldn’t remember seeing any window there on the way in. “One-way glass?” he asked.

“That’s right. For the residents’ protection. It’s a mirror on the other side.”

“Did you see where I was in the moat?”

“Yes, sir, it looked like you were just outside the cellar window, the one that got jimmied open.”

“I was. I came down the other side of the moat, from the back alley, crossed it and climbed up by the window. If it was nighttime do you think you would have seen me there?”

“Well …”

“A plain yes or no will do. I’m not trying to trap you into anything.”

“The building management, they’re already doing something about the security, it’s mostly the trouble with the alarm system. No, I don’t think I would have seen you at night, sir, not down there in the dark.”

“I didn’t think so. Then you believe that someone could have entered the building that way, unseen?”

Charlie’s small, piggish eyes were half closed, looking around for aid. “I suppose,” he admitted finally, “the killer could have got in that way.”

“Good. And that particular cellar room is the right one to come in through. Easy to get near the window, a broken alarm on the frame, everything just right. Whoever broke in could have marked the window with that heart so he could find it again from the outside. Which means he had to have been in the building first, probably casing it.”

“Maybe,” Charlie admitted, and smiled slightly. “And maybe he made the mark there after he got in, just to fool you into believing it was an inside job.”

Andy nodded. “You’re thinking, Charlie. But either way it could have been marked from the inside first, and I have to operate on that principle. I’ll want a list of all the present employees, all the new ones and all those who have left here in the last couple of years, a list of tenants and former tenants. Who would have a thing like that?”

“The building manager, sir, he has an office right upstairs. Would you like me to show you where it is?”

“In one minute—I need another glass of water first.”

Andy stood facing the inner door of the O’Brien apartment, pretending to be busy with the list of names he had obtained from the building manager. He knew that Shirl might be looking at him in the door TV and he tried to appear preoccupied and busy. When he had left that morning she had been asleep and he had not talked to her since the previous night—not that they had done much talking then, either. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed, it was just that the whole thing still had an air of unreality about it. She belonged here and he didn’t, and if she pretended that nothing had happened, or didn’t mention it—could he? He didn’t think he would. She was a long time answering the door, maybe she wasn’t home? No, the bodyguard, Tab, was downstairs, which meant she was still in the building. Was something wrong? Had the killer come back? That was a stupid thing to think, yet he hammered loudly on the panel.

“Don’t break it down,” she said as she opened it. “I was cleaning and I didn’t hear the door.” Her hair was tied up in a turban and her feet were bare. A lot of her was bare since she was wearing just a pale green halter and shorts. She looked wonderful.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” he said seriously.

“Well, it’s not very important,” she laughed, “don’t look so sad.” She leaned forward and gave him a quick warm kiss on the mouth. Before he could react she had turned away and gone down the hall. The shorts were very short, and very, very round. As the door clicked behind him he realized suddenly that he was quite happy. The air was wonderfully cool.