Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [117]
Lee leaned forward. “Do you think he jumped?”
“Absolutely not. I know Eddie could get low—it wasn’t any secret that he suffered from ups and down—but right now he was in an up phase.” He picked up a beer coaster and ran his fingers lightly over the edges. “Could have been an accident, I guess. He had just won a lot of money, and he was probably excited about it. He may not have been paying attention because of all the money he’d just won—maybe he was thinking about that.”
“But you said he hated standing on the warning track. Why would he even be close to the edge like that?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out.”
Rhino returned with three glasses of very cold beer. Lee drank half of his in one gulp, and felt the bubbles rise to his head.
For the first time since Lee had met him, Rhino spoke.
“I think someone got to him.” His voice was oddly thin and high, like the upper reaches of a woodwind instrument—a reedy oboe or clarinet.
“You mean someone pushed him?” The minute Lee spoke the words, he knew that was what he had been thinking all along, in the back of his mind.
Rhino’s pale eyes narrowed. “No way a guy like Eddie falls onto a track—or even jumps. It’s not his style.”
Lee turned to Diesel. “Do you agree?”
Diesel nodded slowly. “I can’t figure it any other way.” He took a long drink and wiped his mouth delicately with a cocktail napkin.
“Did Eddie have any enemies that might have—I mean, he did gamble, right?”
“Yeah, but he didn’t owe his bookie, and he’d just won big at the track.”
Lee frowned. “He told me he was clean—that he’d given it up.”
His companions exchanged a glance.
“Eddie didn’t always exactly tell the truth,” Rhino said, looking down at his beer glass.
“This guy you’re after,” Diesel said, “is he capable of something like that?”
“Oh, he’s capable of just about anything.”
“But I thought he killed women.”
“Yes, but a murder like this would be different. It would be to protect himself from getting caught. But how would he know who Eddie is?”
“I don’t know,” Diesel said. “But maybe he tailed him into the subway and waited for his chance.”
“But why? What did Eddie know? That’s a big risk to take.”
“Yeah, it is. I don’t know what Eddie knew, because I hadn’t spoken to him for a couple of days. But maybe this guy had been watching him.”
“Okay,” Lee said to the pair sitting opposite him, “I’m going to need some information from you.”
“Anything you want, you got it,” Rhino replied.
“Right,” said Diesel. “If this guy did Eddie, we want to help you any way we can.”
Lee shivered as another thought came into his head. For the first time it occurred to him that whoever wanted him off the case might very well be someone he knew.
Chapter Fifty-three
The SRO desk clerk was a thick, lumpy man with a face that looked like it had been hewn from an oak tree with a rusty ax. His cheekbones were set at different heights, giving his whole face a lopsided look, and his nose was flattened and crooked. Lee realized he was looking at a boxer’s face. The man’s clothes and haircut belonged to a different era. They reminded Lee of gangster films of the ’30s and ’40s.
“Excuse me, I wonder if you could help me,” Lee said as he approached the desk.
The man looked up from the sports pages he was reading. “Sure, Mac, whaddya need?” Even his voice was straight out of a B movie.
Diesel and Rhino had given Lee the address of the West Side flophouse where Eddie lived, but they didn’t know the manager’s name. This guy had night staff written all over him, though, and a couple of twenties later Lee was seated on the bed in Eddie’s room, going through his things. Word had already gotten around about what happened to Eddie, and the clerk insisted on watching while Lee went through his friend’s possessions. He stood in the doorway fingering a cigarette, as if he couldn’t wait to go outside and smoke it.
It was a dismal room, the stale smell of desperation clinging to the peeling wallpaper, and Lee felt ashamed that he hadn’t known how close to the edge his friend was living. Any offers of