door unlocked and stood there holding it open, gazing pointedly at the book on the sidewalk. After a moment he went over, bent down, grunted, straightened up, and placed the book on the table.
Inside, I asked him how the Candlemas investigation was coming.
“Movin’ right along,” he said. “There’s a team of investigators workin’ right now, tryin’ to find out what Cap Hob means.” That’s how he pronounced it. “They got a computer that’s like havin’ every phone book in America lined up, only it can go through ’em in seconds. If Caphob’s somebody’s name, they’ll know it in nothin’ flat.”
“If Mr. Caphob’s got a phone.”
“Just so he’s got a pulse. There’s city directories in the computer, too, an’ everything else you can think of. You wouldn’t believe all the things they can do with their computers.”
“Science is wonderful,” I said.
“Ain’t it the truth.” He made a show of consulting his watch, then leaned forward confidentially and planted an elbow on my counter. “Might need a little help from you, though, Bernie.”
“Don’t tell me you locked yourself out of your car again.”
“Might ask you to come down to the morgue and make a formal ID of the guy.”
I’d been waiting for him to ask me a favor. I knew it was coming the minute he took the trouble to pick up the book.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I barely knew the man.”
“I thought he was such a good customer.”
“I wouldn’t call him a regular. I saw him once in a while.”
“You knew him well enough to loan him your sashay case.”
“Attaché case.”
“You know what I meant. You gave it to him to carry home a book he paid five bucks for, or at least that’s your story.” He straightened up. “Speakin’ of which, we could go over that story a few more times if you don’t want to cooperate and ID the poor dead son of a bitch. Put in a couple of hours down at the station house, takin’ a statement from you, lettin’ you tell your story to a few different cops so’s we can all get the whole picture.”
“It’s nice to know I have a choice in the matter.”
“Damn right you got a choice,” he said. “You can do the right thing, or you can suffer the consequences. Up to you.”
“Naturally I want to cooperate with the police,” I said, with all the sincerity of a game show host. “But what do you need me for, Ray? The man had neighbors. They must have known him better than I did.”
He shook his head. “Way it’s shapin’ up,” he said, “they didn’t know him at all. I’ll take that back, the woman on the ground floor knew him, said he was a very nice man. Trouble is she’s blind, spends most of her time listening to books on tape. One flight up you got a couple named Lehrman on the second floor, except you don’t at the moment because they left ten days ago to spend the next four months in the south of France. They’re college professors and they swapped their apartment in some kind of triangular deal. The Frenchman’s in Singapore for the spring an’ summer, an’ there’s a businessman with a Chinese name in the Lehrmans’ apartment, so I guess he’s from Singapore. Wherever he’s from, he’s only been here a little over a week an’ he says he never met Candlemas. We showed him a photo the lab boys took an’ it didn’t refresh his memory none.
“Who else we got? A couple of gays in the basement apartment, also new in the building, an’ they got a separate entrance all their own. They never met Candlemas. The super lives next door, he takes care of three or four buildings, an’ he’s only had the job for a couple of months. Candlemas never asked him to do anything for him, so they never met. The guy says he went lookin’ to introduce hisself once or twice, just in the interest of makin’ contact, an’ if you ask me in the interest of settin’ Candlemas up for a decent tip come Christmas. But Candlemas wasn’t around the time or two he went lookin’ for him. No way in the world he could ID him.”
“What about the third floor?”
“The third floor?”
“The gay couple’s in the basement,” I said, “and the blind woman’s on the ground floor, with the Lehrmans directly above her.”
“Except they’re not there,” he said, “seein’ as they’re in France. Go on.”
“Candlemas was on the fourth