After the First Death - Lawrence Block [43]
I changed a couple of singles into dimes and went right through the list of Eugenes. I asked everyone who answered if I could speak to Turk, and eight times running I was told I had the wrong number. Did they happen to know a Eugene Williams nicknamed Turk or Turkey? No, they didn’t.
The ninth time, he answered. I wasn’t sure the voice was his. I asked for Turk, and he said, “Right here, man.”
I said, “This is—” and stopped, because it occurred to me that heroin wholesalers might have their phones tapped. “This is the Fountain,” I said. That had been his name for me, coined when I helped him with his appeal. He had told me how brilliant I was, and I agreed I was a regular fount of knowledge, and he said yeah, a Fountain Penn.
“Mr. Ball Point.”
“Right.”
“Give me a number, this phone’s dirty.”
I did, and he rang off. I held the hook down with one hand and kept the receiver to my ear, milming a conversation to justify my continuing presence in the booth. Five or ten minutes later the phone rang.
He said, “I’m in a booth now, but let’s leave out the names, dig? My man, I thought you was in Brazil by now.”
“I’m here in New York.”
“Well, we better do something about that. Why you called, huh? My pleasure. You got me out of a tighter place than New York, New York, and if I can return the favor—”
“Turk, I—”
“You need money and you need transportation, am I right? Money is no problem, and there’s a car I can let you have. You want me to meet you some place, say where and when. I would say Mexico would be the best place for you. At least for a start I can tell you where to hit the border, and once you’re across—
“Turk, I didn’t kill her.”
He stopped in mid-sentence. He was silent for a moment, then, “Tell me more, baby.”
I went through it as quickly as I could. “The cat who killed her,” he said finally. “You recognize him if you saw him again?”
“All I remember was an arm. An arm and a hand.”
“Recollect what it looked like?”
“Like an arm, that’s all. You see one arm—”
“No, hang on. Like was it a fat arm or a thin arm, or what kind of shirt on it or was it white or colored. Dig?”
I tried. “No,” I said, finally. “All I really know is that it wasn’t mine. I can’t do any better than that.”
“You can’t come any closer? It could even be a woman?”
“For all I know. I hadn’t thought of that, but—”
“Yeah, I’m hip. Maybe it’ll come clearer for you, maybe—”
It won’t I’ve been over it too many times. I can’t get any more out of it and I’m afraid I never will.”
“That does make it rugged, man.”
“I know.”
“So where do you go from here?”
I told him my idea of tackling it from a new angle, trying to make contact with a girl who might have known Robin. He wasn’t very encouraging. “They don’t talk,” he said. “And you know, junkies, they never notice anything anyway. And when they do they forget it or they won’t talk about it.”
“I thought you might know some of them.”
“Not that crowd. I’m uptown, you know—”
“I know.”
“—And down there is another scene entirely. I’ll lay it out straight baby. You’re innocent and it’s good for you to know it and all, but stick around this town and they’ll do you just as bad as if you were guilty. Either way you got to put some mileage on you. Then maybe something comes to the surface while you’re gone, and then you come back. But meanwhile—”
“I think I’ll keep trying.”
“Your life, man. Need anything?”
“No.”
“You do, you know where to shout. Anytime, and for anything.”
“Thanks, Turk.”
“Cause I owe you, you know, and I settle up.”
I rang off, left the booth. I wondered whether or not he believed me. And then, hopelessly, I realized that he did not even care. His was a practical mind, cool and calm, and he saw clearly enough that I was in precisely the same bind whether it was my hand or another’s that killed Robin Canelli. And his advice was correspondingly practical. Run, run, save yourself—
I found a liquor store and bought a fifth of rye.
In the hotel