CHAPTER 8

9:23 A.M. Sunday

My personal nest was a three-room apartment far enough east in the Fifties to be out of the high rent district. The front door is always open because the tenants are all reformed beatniks of another generation. On the first floor, a lady named Bertha Kolwitz who fashioned silver jewelry and sold her products to an exclusive group of retail outlets among the department stores and small, chic shops on Madison Avenue. On the third floor, a writer named Bruce Collins who drank his inspiration and labored occasionally at feature articles for the science magazines.

And in the middle, on the second floor, my own trap, an adequate roost, complete with my personal junk scattered in a cozy, square living room. There was a kitchen large enough to swing a kitten in, and a bedroom in the rear, dimly lit by the gray light that filtered in through the yard on the north side, of the house. Here I slept soundly on Sundays only, reserving this morning for catching up on my weekday sleeplessness. It was my habit to doze until noon.

But today my sleep was fractured by a loud pounding on the door. I slid out of bed and grumbled my way through the living room.

And Sandra fell into my arms when I opened up.

“Johnny,” she gasped. “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny.”

She seemed on the verge of honest collapse. I eased her into a chair and she clung to me with unhealthy desperation, her fingers clawing my arms. She was dressed in a haphazard way, her chic clothes looking loose and disordered, as though she had thrown them on in a hurry. Her hair hung in a frantic tangle, uncombed and unpinned. There was a garish, unreal quality to her face, the make-up carelessly applied, her lips a crimson smear. Her eyes floored me. She had been weeping for a long time. She had been in shock in the recent past.

“What’s eating you, Sandra?”

“You didn’t hear the news?”

“I just climbed out of the sack.”

“On the radio,” she whispered. “About my father.”

“Stop with the riddles.” I lifted her head and she stared at me out of deep and sorrowful eyes. “What about your father?”

“He was murdered, Johnny.”

“No! When?”

“Last night.”

“Out on the Island?”

“In his studio,” Sandra said. She began to sob, great gusts of woe. “I’m scared, Johnny, scared to death.”

“What scares you?”

“I was there.”

“What?” There was nothing I could do to bury the reflex heat in me. I pulled her to her feet and she hung against me, as limp as a side of beef. But much more vocal. It would take skill and care to bring her out of her canyon of shock. She would continue to blubber and groan for hours unless I brought her around. And fast.

So I slapped her. Not hard, but with a staccato clip, enough to jolt her, to open her beautiful eyes. Then I sat her down at the small table near the bay window and brought her a shot of Scotch and made her down it. She rallied a bit after that. A small dark cloud slid away from her eyes and she found herself at last.

“Begin at the beginning,” I advised. “After I left you last night.”

She sucked at a cigarette and began her monologue.

“I must have been crazy to go out there, Johnny. But I did. Just after you went home.”

“The time,” I said. “Try to remember the time.”

“It was a little after eleven when I crossed the Triborough Bridge. I remember it clearly because there’s a big clock over the toll gate. Oh, I was pretty cockeyed, Johnny, pretty stiff. But liquor never affects my driving, you know that. I made good time getting out to my father’s house. There’s that big new expressway and very little traffic at that hour. When I got to the house I parked the car on the road and walked toward the door. I wanted to surprise him, you see. But I got the first surprise. Just as I entered the driveway, a man came stumbling down toward the road. It was Leo Austrian. And he was crocked.”

“You spoke to him?”

“I avoided him. I hid behind the bushes at the side of the road until he passed me. He walked to his car and drove off.”

“Which way? Can you remember?”

“Toward the highway. South.”

“And you’re sure he didn’t see you?”

“I’m positive,” she said. “He was just about able to hold himself up. After he left I ran up the driveway to the front door. The secretary, Gloria Cobb, let me in.”

“At that hour?” I whistled.

“She explained that she was waiting around for Mark Tyson to finish dictating a script. And she wasn’t lying, because I could hear him in the studio.”

“What time was that?”

“It must have been a little before midnight, just a bit. I got out there in an hour.”

“And when did you leave?”

“I haven’t any idea.”

“Take a stab at it.”

“Maybe fifteen minutes.”

“You left alone?”

“Gloria Cobb told me she was leaving,” Sandra said. “That was why I decided to go. Does it sound funny? Something happened to me on the way out there, Johnny. I cooled off. I had the top down and the air killed off the liquor and I had a chance to think. I was sober when I hit the expressway, don’t you see? I began to ask myself questions. What could I accomplish by going out to annoy my father? Where would it get me? By the time I started up the road on the last mile, my head was completely clear. The loneliness of that road got me, too, I guess. And that was why I chickened out when Gloria Cobb told me she was going home.”

“And what then? You drove to New York?”

“Not quite, Johnny.”

“Where did you go?”

“I crossed the Island to the south shore, over the Captree Bridge to the Jones Beach approach. It was a lovely night. You know that road, Johnny? It’s a straight line through the sand dunes. I looked at the sea and then headed for home. I got home after three.”

“You saw nobody all this time? The doorman at your place, maybe?”

“He was off duty.” She turned her curious eyes my way. “What are you getting at?”

“Witnesses,” I said. “An alibi is nothing without a witness.”

“Alibi?”

“You need one, baby. But bad.”

“You don’t believe my story?”

“I didn’t say that. But will the city dicks believe it?”

“It’s the truth.”

“The truth is a kick in the slats lots of times, Sandra. They already know that you were there. Gloria Cobb told them, naturally.” The reality of her situation grabbed her now. She buried her head in her hands and began to sob again. I lifted her chin and for a long moment looked deep into her eyes. “You’re telling me the truth?” I asked. “You didn’t go back to Mark Tyson’s house after Gloria left?”

“Good God, Johnny, no!”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. Amble into the kitchen and brew us some coffee, will you? And you can make some bacon and eggs for me, if you don’t mind. I’d suggest you eat something, baby. You’re going to need sustenance in a little while. Because we’ve got to go out to your father’s house and tell the Nassau County cops your story.”