Where There's Smoke полностью

“Upstairs,” she said. “The fourth floor. Tell him when he cashes that check, he ain’ to forget he owes me six dol­lars. Gloria, tell him. He’ll know who you mean.”

“Thank you,” I said. “The fourth floor, right?”

“Tha’s right. Apartment 42. Now don’t you forget t’tell him, hear?”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Six dollars,” she said.

I went into the building again. The glass panel on the upper half of the inner lobby door had been broken out completely; a gaping open rectangle revealed the stair­way inside, garbage cans stacked to the left of it. I opened the door and climbed the steps to the fourth floor. There was the stench of contained living in the hallways, cook­ing smells and garbage smells and the smells of human waste. I listened outside the door to Apartment 42, and then knocked. A man’s voice answered immediately.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Carruthers?”

“Yeah?”

“Police officer,” I said.

“Again?” he said. I heard him coming toward the door. It was apparently unlocked, I heard no tumblers being turned. He opened the door and looked out at me. He did not ask for identification, and I offered none.

“Come in, come in,” he said wearily.

The description Dave Horowitz had read from Car­ruthers’ yellow sheet had done little to suggest the hand­someness of the man. Carruthers was tall and muscularly built, his hair barbered in a modified Afro cut, his dark eyes alert and intelligent, his complexion a warm brown color. He was clean-shaven, dressed in form-fitting, bell-bottomed slacks and a long-sleeved white sports shirt with patch pockets, sandals on his feet. He had very big hands, with the outsized knuckles of a street fighter. A gold ring was on the index finger of his right hand.

“I already gave at the office,” he said, and smiled.

“I take it my partner was here,” I said.

“Man named O’Neil?”

“That’s the one.”

“He was here,” Carruthers said. “You guys ought to try avoiding duplication. Save the city a little money.” His smile was entirely charming. I found it difficult to re­member he’d spent half of his life in prison.

“I hope you won’t mind answering a few more ques­tions,” I said.

“Long as we make it fast,” he said. “I got to get to work.”

“What kind of work do you do, Mr. Carruthers?” I said. It was now four o’clock in the afternoon.

“I’m a dishwasher,” he said. “I work at the R&M, up on Liberty. I go in at four-thirty, and I’m through by ten. It’s a good deal.”

“I guess you know why I’m here,” I said.

“Natalie Fletcher,” he said, and nodded. “Your partner finally got around to asking me about her, after an hour of bullshit. I guess I had to convince him first I didn’t kill a man, and steal a dead body, and hit an old lady with a crowbar.”

“I take it you convinced him.”

“I convinced him because I was next door playing poker last night, and three guys in the game live right here in this building, and he talked to two of them, and they swore on a stack of Bibles that I was in Apartment 33 from eight-thirty to two in the morning. I also lost forty-seven dollars,” he said, and smiled again.

“Did my partner mention why we’re looking for Na­talie Fletcher?”

“Your partner is a very close-mouthed person,” Car­ruthers said. “He told me about the homicide only be­cause he figured to scare hell out of me. He had me doing life at Brandenheim even before he walked through that door. But this time I’m clean. As clean as a field of daisies. Sit down. You want some coffee or something.”

“Thanks, no, I realize you’re in a hurry. Mr. Carruthers, according to your parole officer...”

“Mr. Elston, yeah.”

“According to him, you’re living with Natalie Fletcher.”

“Was,” Carruthers said.

“She’s not living here now?”

“No.”

“When was she living here?”

“She moved out three months ago. Took a pad on Oberlin Crescent.”

“Mr. Elston seems to think...”

“Mr. Elston is a very nice guy, but he’s also very old­-fashioned. He thinks if you’re living with some chick, that’s it forever. Till death do us part, you know? He keeps asking me ‘How’s Natalie?’ when I already told him maybe a hundred times I kicked her out.”

“And that was three months ago?”

“June the eighth, to be exact. A Saturday. We had a very nice scene here. I’ll never forget that night as long as I live.”

“What happened?”

“What happened is Nat’s crazy, that’s what happened. And also, she almost got me in trouble. I went to one of her fuckin’ witches’ Sabbaths, and some guy tipped off Elston, and he started warning me about breakin’ parole, and like that. Look, I’m leveling with you, mister, I don’t want you going back to Elston and telling him I did go to that thing. I told him he was making a mistake, and he be­lieved me. Anyway, I didn’t go to any more of them. Crazy damn bitch,” he said, and shook his head. “Every­body standin’ around with black hoods over their faces, and doing the whole voodoo bit, and carvin’ up chickens ...”

“Chickens?”

“For blood sacrifices. A bunch of bullshit is what it was. If I’d known she was hipped on that devil shit, I never would’ve started up with her.”

“How’d you meet her?”