Manhattan Noir - Lawrence Block [8]
Arthur kept snatching up the loose cigarettes until he heard the gun cock. He looked up and the smile finally disappeared.
The detective moved the gun closer to the other man’s face. “I’m not going to shoot you, Arthur,” he said, “unless you make me.”
Arthur’s face was trembling. His hands shook. A few cigarettes slipped back onto the sidewalk. He looked left and right, but the street was deserted.
“Nervous?” the detective said. He picked two cigarettes off the sidewalk, wiped them roughly on the blanket. He leaned forward and put one between Arthur’s lips. It slipped out as Arthur opened his mouth to talk. “I don’t want—”
“Oh, you want,” the detective said. He leaned forward and put another cigarette in Arthur’s mouth. He pressed the gun against Arthur’s forehead, Arthur’s head against the wall. “Don’t spit it out.”
Arthur shifted the cigarette nervously to one corner of his mouth, but he didn’t spit it out.
“Good.” The detective groped through Arthur’s coat pockets until he found the lighter. He opened it. A flame leapt up. He brought it close to the end of the cigarette in Arthur’s mouth.
“Please, don’t—”
“Why not?”
Arthur shook his head.
“Why not?” Arthur looked at him miserably, but said nothing. “You’re going to tell me why not, Arthur, or you’re going to smoke that cigarette.”
“I don’t want to …”
The detective passed the flame over the end of the cigarette. The paper and tobacco were singed. A drop of sweat rolled down Arthur’s upper lip and onto the cigarette.
“Want me to guess why you don’t want to smoke this cigarette?” the detective said. “Okay. How about, because you poisoned it? Could that be it?”
Arthur nodded uneasily.
“Talk to me, Arthur.”
“Yes,” he said in a small voice. “That’s it.”
“And why are you going around offering homeless people poisoned cigarettes, Arthur? Do you dislike homeless people? Do you not want to see them around? Or do you just get off on killing people?”
“No,” Arthur whispered, “that’s not it at all.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it is, then?”
“They’re so miserable,” Arthur said. There were tears in his eyes. “Out here on the street, in the cold, on drugs, selling their bodies … No one should have to live like that.”
“So you kill them?”
“I give them a cigarette. They feel no pain. They never know what happened. They’re out of their misery.”
“In other words, you kill them.”
“They go to sleep and don’t wake up.”
“You kill them, goddamn it,” the detective said, pressing the gun harder into the man’s skull. “Say it.”
“I kill them,” Arthur said. “But they’re better off for it.”
Arthur and the detective sat silently, staring at each other. The detective saw no sign of understanding or of self-awareness. He saw terror, but no remorse.
He thought of the digital recorder in his pocket, quietly capturing a record of their words, and pictured this grandfatherly man standing in front of a jury, earnestly insisting on his innocence. He looked at Arthur’s well-cut suit and polished loafers, at the watch on his wrist, and pictured the caliber of lawyer he would hire to defend himself. He pictured a trial with no witnesses to the crimes, a case where the victims were on the margins of society and the defendant looked like a pillar of the community. He pictured the defense lawyer asking the jury if they could trust a policeman who had held a gun to this nice old man’s head. Of course he admitted the crime, ladies and gentlemen—wouldn’t you? With a gun to your head?
He pictured Harold Sladek, cold and wet, taking a cigarette from this well-dressed benefactor. He pictured Michael Casey passing time with his killer, thanking him for his kindness, whispering God bless.
He pictured all this in the time it took for Arthur to swallow, nervously, twice.
The detective passed the flame over the cigarette once more. This time he held it there. “Inhale.”
“You can’t—”
“Inhale!”
Arthur sucked in, as briefly as he could. The tip of the cigarette glowed red. The detective closed the lighter and pocketed it.
“Again.”
“Don’t—”
“Again.”
“Please—”
“This