City of the Dead

»34«

“Digital imprint on wine bottle in kitchen.”

“Sixteen ridge characteristics in agreement with left forefinger.”

“Digital imprints on plate in kitchen sink.”

“Fourteen and ten ridge characteristics in agreement with left middle and ring fingers respectively.”

“Digital imprint on canister of gelignite Type C in front foyer.”

“You got there sixteen ridge characteristics in agreement with right middle finger. Imprints of finger and thumb also identical.”

Haggard scribbles hastily on his pad. “What’s that left palmar imprint on the dining-room table look like?” Sergeant Leo Wershba holds a set of print cards up to the light, scanning them quickly with his bright, shrewd eyes. “Pretty messy,” he says after a while. “It was a glass tabletop and it looks like somebody wiped it. But we got thirteen ridge characteristics in agreement.”

Haggard sighs, snaps his pad shut, and leans back in his chair. “Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?”

“Couldn’t look better, Frank. This is your boy.”

For a while the two men regard each other silently. “Lemme see that ugly puss again,” the detective growls. Wershba tosses a standard police mug shot across the desk at Haggard, who lights a cigarette while studying it intently. “Janos Klejew—How the hell you pronounce that?”

“Klejewski—the w is silent.”

“Klejewski.” Haggard says it over and over again, forming the word slowly with his lips. “Lovely-looking boy, isn’t he?”

“I’m sure his mother thinks so.” Wershba, a short, moon-faced man with a bald head and enormous compensatory mustache, smiles brightly. “I got a book on this guy as thick as the Manhattan Yellow Pages.”

“Klejewski.” Haggard resumes his quick, barely audible lipreading. “Known to associates as Kunj or Kunje. Has repeatedly been identified with persons who advocate the use of explosives and may have acquired firearms. Considered extremely dangerous.”

The detective’s eyes range over the broad, flat, slightly acromegalic features. They are thick and not at all sharply defined. There is, too, something profoundly disquieting about the eyes, a blank, drowsy quality beyond which lurks an air of easily eruptible violence.

“Big mother, ain’t he?” says Wershba, reading the detective’s thoughts.

“Got any leads?”

“Maybe. Who knows? Nothing that amounts to very much anyway. Got an all-points out for him now, but the guy’s been at large two years. Busted out of stir twenty-three months ago. And this bombworks up on Fox Street is the first pickup we got on him in all that time.”

“What was he in for?”

“Arson—Kunje has a fondness for matches and big firecrackers.”

Haggard nods slowly. “Where’d you say he busted from?”

“I didn’t But it was Danbury.”

“Danbury?” The detective ponders the word aloud, his fingers drumming on the arm of his chair. “Wasn’t that where—”

“—Meacham was,” Wershba says, glowing like a Christmas light. “Right you are, pal. That’s where the two lovelies met.”

“Jesus.” Haggard’s fist cracks loudly in the palm of his hand. “If I can only get my hands on the son of a bitch he’ll lead me right to Meacham.”

“What makes you so sure they’re not together right now?”

“No way.” Haggard shakes his head. “All you hadda do was see this place up in The Bronx. Clothes in the drawers, food still on the plates in the kitchen. They left prints all over the place. They got out fast. Then all of ’em split. Went separate ways.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“A mob that size? Eight or nine freaks traveling together? Stand out like a sore thumb. Nope—they split, probably with plans to meet at some future time. Meacham and maybe two, three of the other freaks took the girl with them. The rest of ’em all went their own ways.” Haggard hops to his feet and starts pacing. “Identify any of the other prints up there?”

“Not yet. Still working on it. But Meacham and Klejewski we got nailed. Both on the Fox Street place and the loft on Varick. We’ll get you the others too. All we need is a little time.”

“That’s all you got, Wershba. Just a little. If I read this Meacham right, he isn’t giving us much more than that.”