When Marino hung up, he looked at me. “Christ, the squirrel doesn’t own the condo at all. It’s owned by some businessman who rents it, and Sullivan started renting it the friggin’ first week in December. He paid the deposit on the sixth, to be exact.”
He opened the car door, adding, “And he drives a dark blue Chewy van. An old one with no windows.”
Marino followed me back to headquarters and we left my car in his parking place. We shot across Broad Street, heading toward Franklin.
“Let’s hope the manager hasn’t alerted him.” Marino raised his voice above the roar of the engine.
He slowed down and parked in front of an eight-story brick building.
“His condo’s in back,” he explained, looking around. “So he shouldn’t be able to see us.”
He reached under the seat and got out his nine-millimeter to back up the 357 in the holster under his left arm. Tucking the pistol in the back of his trousers and an extra clip in his pocket, he opened his door.
“If you’re expecting a war, I’ll be glad to stay In the car,” I said.
“If a war starts, I’ll toss you my three-fifty and a couple speed loaders, and you damn better be as good a shot as Patterson’s been saying you are. Stay behind me at all times.”
At the top of the steps, he rang the bell. “He’s probably not going to be here.”
Momentarily, the lock clicked free and the door opened. An elderly man with bushy gray eyebrows identified himself as the building superintendent Marino hail spoken to earlier do the phone.
“Do you know if he’s in?” Marino asked: “I have no idea.”
“We’re going to go up and check.”
“You Won’t be going up because hers on this floor.”
The superintendent pointed east. “Just follow that corridor and take the first left. It’s a corner apartment at the very end. Number seventeen.”
The building possessed a debut tined luxuriousness, reminiscent of old hotels that no one particularly wards to stay in anymore because the rooms are too small and the decor is too dark and a little frayed. I noted cigarette burns in the deep red carpet, and the stain on the paneling was almost black. Hilton Sullivan’s corner apartment was announced by a small brass 17. There was no peephole, and when Marino knocked, we heard footsteps.
“Who is it?” a voice asked.
“‘Maintenance,” Marino said. “To change the filter in your heater.”
The door opened, and the instant I saw the piercing blue eyes in the space and they saw me, my breath caught. Hilton Sullivan tried to slam shut the door, but Marino’s foot was wedged against the jamb.
“Get to the side!”
Marino shouted at me as he snatched out his revolver and leaned as far away from the door’s opening as he could.
I darted up the corridor as he suddenly kicked the door open wide and it slammed against the wall inside. Revolver ready, he went in, anti I waited in dread for a scuffle or gunfire. Minutes went by. Then l heard Marino saying something on his portable radio. He reappeared, sweating, his face an angry red.
“I don’t fucking believe it He went out the window like a damn jackrabbit and there’s not a sign of him. Goddamn son of a bitch. His van’s sitting right-out there in the lot in back. He’s off on foot somewhere. I’ve sent out an alert to units in the area.”
He wiped his face on his sleeve and struggled to catch his broth.
“I thought he was a woman,” I said numbly.
“Huh?” Marino stared at me.
“When I went to see Helen Grimes, he was inside her house. He looked out the door once while we were talking on the porch. I thought it was a woman.”
“Sullivan was at Helen the Hun’s house?” Marino said loudly.
“I’m sure of it.”
“Jesus Christ. That don’t make a damn bit of sense.”
But it did make sense when we began looking around Sullivan’s apartment. It was elegantly furnished with antiques and fine rugs, which Marino said belonged to the owner, not to Sullivan, according to the superintendent. Jazz drifted from the bedroom, where we found Hilton Sullivan’s blue down jacket on the bed next to a beige corduroy shirt and a pair of faded jeans, neatly folded. His running shoes and socks were on the rug. On the mahogany dresser were a green cap and a pair of sunglasses: and a loosely folded blue uniform shirt that still had Helen Grimes’s nameplate pinned above the breast pocket. Beneath it was a large envelope of photographs that Marino went through while I silently looked on.