What do you think?”
“I never think on Sundays,” O’Brien said, but he began looking over the apartment. The place had a look of impermanence to it. There was a bed with brass bedstead against one wall, a nighttable standing alongside it. A basin and a pitcher of water rested on the table. A floor lamp stood behind a worn easy chair in one corner of the room. A curtained closet was on the wall opposite the window. Beside that was the door leading to a tiny bathroom. O’Brien went into the bathroom and opened the medicine chest. It was empty. He pulled back the curtain on the closet and looked at the empty hangers.
“Whoever was here was traveling light,” he remarked.
“Any signs of a woman?” Meyer said. “Lipstick tissues? Bobby pins? Long hairs?”
“Not even a sign of a human,” O’Brien said. “Wait a minute, here’s something.” He lifted an ash tray from the night table. “A cigar butt. Know any dames who smoke cigars?”
“Anne Baxter and Hermione Gingold,” Meyer said. “Think they also fire rifles?”
“Maybe. But most actresses don’t perform on Sundays. Besides, it would never be my luck to catch a case involving celebrities.”
“I had a celebrity once,” Meyer said. “A singer. It’s a shame I was a married man at the time.”
“Why?”
“Well,” Meyer said, and he shrugged eloquently.
“It certainly is fascinating to watch you fellows at work,” Pullen said.
“It beats television six ways from the middle,” O’Brien said. “Most people think of cops as everyday workingmen who go to a musty office and type up reports in triplicate and do a lot of legwork all over the city. Just ordinary guys, you understand? Guys with wives and families. Guys like you and me, Mr. Pullen.”
“Yes?” Pullen said.
“Sure. That’s the influence of television. Actually, a detective is a pretty glamorous character. Ain’t that right, Meyer?”
“Absolutely,” Meyer said, sniffing the cigar butt.
“He’s all the time getting involved with gorgeous blondes in slinky negligees. Ain’t that right, Meyer?”
“Absolutely,” Meyer said. The cigar was a White Owl. He made a mental note of it.
“He leads a life of gay adventurous excitement,” O’Brien said. “When he ain’t drinking in some very swank bar, he is out driving in a Cadillac convertible with the top down and the blonde’s knees up on the seat. Boy, what a life! I’m telling you, Mr. Pullen, detective work ain’t all routine.”
“It sounds much more interesting than real estate,” Pullen said.
“Oh, it is, it is. And the salary is fantastic.” He winked. “Not to mention the graft. Mr. Pullen, don’t believe what you see on television. Cops, Mr. Pullen, are not dull boobs.”
“I never thought they were,” Pullen said. “It certainly is fascinating the way you men work.”
“You’d imagine somebody in the building would have heard a rifle going off twice, don’t you think, Bob?” Meyer said.
“I would imagine so. Unless this is a home for the deaf.”
“Any other apartments on this floor, Mr. Pullen?”
“There’s one right across the hall,” Pullen said. “I rented it myself.”
“Let’s try it, Bob.”
They crossed the hall and knocked on the door. A young man in a short beard and a terry-cloth bathrobe opened it.
“Yo?” he said.
“Police,” Meyer said. He flashed the tin.
“Man, dig the badge,” the man in the bathrobe said.
“What’s your name?” Meyer asked.
“Real or professional?”
“Both.”
“Sid Lefkowitz is the square handle. When I’m on the stand, I use Sid Leff. Shorter, sweeter, and with a good beat.”
“What stand?”
“The bandstand, man.”
“You’re a musician?”
“I blow guitar.”
“Which name do you prefer?”
“Whichever one you like. I’m not choosy, man. Just blow your own ad lib chorus.”
“Mr. Leff, did you hear any shots coming from the room across the hall?”
“Shots? Oh, is that what they were?”
“You heard them?”
“I heard something. But it didn’t bother me. I was working on Strings.”
“On what?”
“Symphony for Twelve Strings. Don’t get the wrong idea. It ain’t from Bananasville. It’s a jazz symphony. I’m writing it for three guitars, six violins, two bass fiddles, and a piano. The piano gets in by poetic license. What the hell, without the strings on the sounding board, there wouldn’t be no piano, right?”
“Did you investigate the shots?”
“No. I figured them for backfires. Trucks go by here all the time. They take a short cut to the parkway through this street. A very noisy pad, this one. I’m thinking of busting out. How can a man concentrate in the midst of din, man, huh?”
“Did you happen to notice who was in that apartment?”
“The guy with the slush pump, you mean?”
“What?”
“The slush pump. The trombone. A guy