The Night and the Music - Lawrence Block [67]
But I walked past it and knelt down next to the corpse. “Stabbed in the heart,” I noted. “Death must have been instantaneous, or the next thing to it. I don’t suppose he had any last words.”
“No.”
“He crumpled up and hit the floor and never moved.”
“That’s right.”
I got to my feet. “Must have been a shock.”
“A terrible shock.”
“How come you didn’t call it in?”
“Call it in?”
“Call the police,” I said. “Or an ambulance, get him to a hospital.”
“A hospital couldn’t do him any good,” the blazer said. “I mean, you could tell he was dead.”
“No pulse, no breathing.”
“Right.”
“Still, you must have known you’re supposed to call the cops when something like this happens.”
‘Yes, of course.”
“But you didn’t.”
They looked at each other. It might have been interesting to see what they came up with, but I made it easy for them.
“You must have been scared,” I said.
“Well, of course.”
“Guy goes to answer the door and the next thing you know he’s dead on the floor. That’s got to be an upsetting experience, especially taking into account that you don’t know who killed him or why. Or do you have an idea?”
They didn’t.
“I don’t suppose this is Phil’s apartment.”
“No.”
Of course not. If it was, they’d have long since gone their separate ways.
“Must be yours,” I told the blazer, and enjoyed it when his eyes widened. He allowed that it was, and asked how I knew. I didn’t tell him he was the one man in the room without a wedding ring, or that I figured he’d changed from a business suit to slightly more casual clothes on his return home, while the others were still wearing what they’d worn to the office that morning. I just muttered something about policemen developing certain instincts, and let him think I was a genius.
I asked if any of them had known Phil very well, and wasn’t surprised to learn that they hadn’t. He was a friend of a friend of a friend, someone said, and did something on Wall Street.
“So he wasn’t a regular at the table.”
“No.”
“This wasn’t his first time, was it?”
“His second,” somebody said.
“First time was last week?”
“No, two weeks ago. He didn’t play last week.”
“Two weeks ago. How’d he do?”
Elaborate shrugs. The consensus seemed to be that he might have won a few dollars, but nobody had paid much attention.
“And this evening?”
“I think he was about even. If he was ahead it couldn’t have been more than a few dollars.”
“What kind of stakes do you play for?”
“It’s a friendly game. One-two-five in stud games. In draw it’s two dollars before the draw, five after.”
“So you can win or lose what, a couple of hundred?”
“That would be a big loss.”
“Or a big win,” I said.
“Well, yes. Either way.”
I knelt down next to the corpse and patted him down. Cards in his wallet identified him as Philip I. Ryman, with an address in Teaneck.
“Lived in Jersey,” I said. “And you say he worked on Wall Street?”
“Somewhere downtown.”
I picked up his left hand. His watch was Rolex, and I suppose it must have been a real one; this was before the profusion of fakes. He had what looked like a wedding band on the appropriate finger, but I saw that it was in fact a large silver or white-gold ring that had gotten turned around, so that the large part was on the palm side of his hand. It looked like an unfinished signet ring, waiting for an initial to be carved into its gleaming surface.
I straightened up. “Well,” I said, “I’d say it’s a good thing you called me.”
“There are a couple of problems,” I told them. “A couple of things that could pop up like a red flag for a responding officer or a medical examiner.”
“Like …”
“Like the knife,” I said. “Phil opened the door and the killer stabbed him once and left, was out the door and down the stairs before the body hit the carpet.”
“Maybe