Part 38 (1/2)
”I found him on the doorstep Quite literally”
God da building I saw you go into your I saw you go into your hoet out?”
To down at the eye Patch in his hands
Another escape artist,” Detective Lieber said ”It ineering is an object of perpetual interest to people bent on self-destruction Since its coantic shard of the Hoosier State torn from the mild limestone bosom of the Midwest and upended, on the site of the old Waldorf-Astoria, in the net for dislocated souls hoping to ensure the finality of their impact, or toalmost twenty-three years earlier, a dozen people had attees or its pinnacle to the street below; about half had iven such clear and considerate warning of his intentions For the building's private police and firefighting squadrons, working in concert with their municipal brethren, there had been ample time to post officers at all the street entrances and points of ingress, at the stairwell doors and elevator banks The twenty-fifth floor, where the offices of E cops in their big-shouldered brass and wool uniforend had it, by the late Al S's fifteen thousand tenants, warning them to be on the lookout for a lean, hawk-faced madman, perhaps dressed in a dark blue union suit, or perhaps in a hters in canvas coveralls ringed the building on three sides, from Thirty-third Street, around Fifth Avenue, to Thirty-fourth They peered up through fine Ger the infinite planes of Indiana rock for any e hand or foot They were ready, insofar as readiness was possible Should the h aand out into the darkening stuff of the evening, their course of action was less clear But they were hopeful
”We'll get hioes,” predicted Captain Harley, still in co's police force after all these years, his blighted eye glittering brighter and et the poor dumb mud-turk”
The daily circulation of the New York Herald-Tribune Herald-Tribune in 1954 was four hundred and fifty thousand Of these readers, some two hundred had been drawn, by the letter printed in their newspaper that azing up They were mostly men in their twenties and thirties, in jackets and ties, shi+pping clerks, co their way up in their fathers' businesses Many of thehborhood They checked their watches and made the hard-bitten remarks of New Yorkers at the prospect of a suicide-”I wish he'd do it already, I got a date”-but they did not take their eyes frorown up on the Escapist, or had discovered hiiuainville In so-dormant memories of reckless, violent, beautiful release in 1954 was four hundred and fifty thousand Of these readers, some two hundred had been drawn, by the letter printed in their newspaper that azing up They were mostly men in their twenties and thirties, in jackets and ties, shi+pping clerks, co their way up in their fathers' businesses Many of thehborhood They checked their watches and made the hard-bitten remarks of New Yorkers at the prospect of a suicide-”I wish he'd do it already, I got a date”-but they did not take their eyes frorown up on the Escapist, or had discovered hiiuainville In so-dormant memories of reckless, violent, beautiful release
Then there were the passersby, the shoppers and office workers headed for hohts and uniforms Word of the pro theed or was retarded by tight-lipped policeent of comic book men was on hand to fill in and embellish the details of Joe Kavalier's misfortunate career
”I hear it's all a hoax,” said Joe Simon, ith his own partner, Jack Kirby, had created Captain Ahts to Captain Areat sums for their owner, Timely Publications, one day to be better known as Marvel Comics ”I heard that from Stan”
By five-thirty, when no one had been found skulking in the building or had inched hian to co with some of hison the end of a briar pipe For the eighth tiold pocket watch and consulted its face He snapped it shut and chuckled
”It's a hoax,” he said ”I knew it all along”
”More and ree,” said Detective Lieber
”Maybe his watch stopped,” Sa that if the threat did turn out to be a hoax, Clay was going to be disappointed
”Tell me this,” Lieber said to Clay As a faht of him-had been permitted within the police cordon In the event that Joe Kavalier appeared, his cousin would be on hand for last-minute pleas and counsel There was also the boy Ordinary procedure would have barred children froht Lieber, who had spent nine years as a patrolman in Brownsville, that every so often the face of a child, or even its voice over a telephone, could draw a person in froe ”Before today, how many people knew this whole story about how you and your cousin were robbed and cheated and taken advantage of?”
”I resent that, Detective,” said Sheldon Anapol The big man had come down from the Empire offices at five o'clock precisely He rapped in a long black overcoat, a tiny gray tyrolean cap roosting on his head like a pigeon, its feather troubled by the breeze The day was turning cold and bitter now The light was failing ”You don't know enough about this hts Not tofor us, both Mr Kavalier and Mr Clay made more money than almost anyone in the business”
”I'etically He turned back to Saetically He turned back to Sa, mouth pursed He saw the detective's point
”Not a hell of a lot before today A few dozen guys in the business A lot of them jokers, I have to admit Some lawyers, probably My wife”
”Well, now, look at this”
Lieber gestured toward the swelling crowd, pushed back to the opposite sidewalk, the streets blocked off and filled with honking cabs, the reporters and photographers, everyone looking up at the building around which the untold Escapist millions had coalesced for so many years They had been told the names of the principal players, Saestured and murmured and scowled at the publisher in his funereal coat The sum of money out of which the teah no one had ever actually sat down and calculated it, idely current in the crowd, and growing by the moment
”You can't buy this kind of publicity” Lieber's experience with suicides was fairly extensive There was a very small set of them who chose to do aith theroup, an even smaller subset ould provide an exact time and place in advance Of these-and he could think of perhaps two in all the years since he got his badge in 1940-none was ever late for his appointh no fault of his own, naturally, ends up looking like the bad guy”
”Character assassination,” Anapol agreed ”That's what it a police snapped the watch shut, this ti to send my boys ho to worry about”
Lieber winked at the boy, a sullen, staring kid who, for the last forty-five randfather with a Finger in histo vomit When Lieber winked, the kid turned pale The detective frowned In his years as a beat cop on and off Pitkin Avenue, he had frightened children with a friendly wink or helloon his conscience
”I don't get it,” said Saht the saet attention and he never had any intention of ju at all But then why did he steal the costuet attention and he never had any intention of ju at all But then why did he steal the costume from my office?”
”Can you prove that he he took the costuot cold feet Maybe he was run down by a pushcart or a taxicab I'll check the hospitals, just in case” took the costuot cold feet Maybe he was run down by a pushcart or a taxicab I'll check the hospitals, just in case”
He nodded to Captain Harley and agreed that it was time to pack up the show Then he turned back to the boy He didn't know exactly what he was going to say; the chain of reasons and possibilities lay still unconnected in hispoliceman's impulse, a nose for trouble, that prompted his question He was one of thosea squirrelly little kid a hard ti adabout,” he said
The boy's eyes widened He was good-looking, a little overfed but with thick black curls and big blue eyes that no even larger The detective wasn't sure yet whether the boy was dreading punish for it Usually, with solemn little reprobates of this sort, it was the latter
”I don't want to catch you loose inIsland where you belong”
He winked at the father now Sarabbed a fistful of his son's hair and shook the boy's head back and forth in a way that looked quite painful to Lieber ”He's beconature on his excuses better than she can”
Lieber felt the links of the chain beginning to reach toward each other
”Is that so?” he said ”Tell me, do you have one of these little o for tomorrow?”
With three swift, mute nods of his head, the boy confessed that he did Lieber held out his hand The boy reached into his satchel and took out a ood paper lay within, neatly typed and signed He handed the paper over to Lieber His movements were precise and preternaturally careful, almost showily so, and Lieber remembered that the boy's father believed his son had been sneaking into the city to hang out with stage ic Shop Lieber scanned the boy's note
Dear Mr Savarese, Please excuse Toain as I told you previously I believe he required ophthalic type treatments from his specialist in the city Sincerely, Mrs Rosa Clay ”I'm afraid your boy was responsible for all this,” Lieber said, passing the letter to the boy's father ”He wrote the letter to the Herald-Tribune” Herald-Tribune”
”I had a feeling,” the grandfather said ”I thought I recognized the style”
”What?” Sam Clay said ”What makes you say that?”
”Typewriters have personalities,” said the boy in a serprints”
”That is very often the case,” Lieber agreed
Saave the boy a queer look ”Tommy, is this true?”
”Yes, sir”
”Youto jump?”
To yourself?”
He nodded
”Well,” said Lieber ”This is a serious thing you've done, son I'm afraid you may have committed a crime” He looked at the father ”I' he had come back”