Detective

been closed for hours. It was one of those outdoor lots where, for a few extra bucks, you could get a park-and-lock spot that wouldn’t be blocked after closing. The indications were that the murder had taken place somewhere else, and the body had been driven to the lot and dumped. Martin Albrect was described as a successful sales executive for Fabri-Tec Inc., a textile manufacturer with offices on West 40th Street. He was a bachelor and lived alone in his apartment on East 81st Street. He was not known to be linked in any way with organized crime.
    I finished the article and discovered I was standing on the northwest corner of Broadway and 42nd Street. I felt instinctively for my wallet. By some miracle it was still there. This marked, I realized, the first time I had ever made my way through the Times Square subway station without transferring my wallet from my hip to my front pants pocket, and keeping my hand pressed firmly against it. I folded the paper, joined a stream of traffic, and headed uptown.
    My office is just east of Broadway, Seventh Avenue—actually, on 47th Street, right in the diamond district. My father-in-law, years ago, had used the office as his principal place of business, selling plastic bags to the jewelers there. He jobbed the bags then, buying at dealer discounts from the large manufacturers, and then underselling them to their own customers. He made enough money doing it to expand his business. He manufactured the bags now, and had his own factory down on 30th Street. The 47th Street office was still carried on the company books as a business expense, but he rarely used it and, in one of those infrequent moments when he had almost believed I was going to be able to support his daughter by writing, he had offered it to me as a place to work. I’d been using it ever since, first for writing, and then as a base for my pseudodetective agency when writing revenues ran thin.
    I waited the usual eternity for the elevator, rumbled up to the third floor, and walked down the narrow hall to my office. In crime novels, detectives always have doors with frosted glass, through which the vague outlines of slinky women can be seen hesitating in the hallway, before making up their minds to enter, or through which the sinister silhouettes of suspected gunmen tip off the hero to the threat of danger. My door was solid wood. A metal plaque on the door read: “STANLEY HASTINGS DETECTIVE AGENCY.” It covered up the original, old, hand-painted sign which read: “COHEN BAG CORP.” The plaque had been given to me by friends as a joke, and I had hung it on the door, partly as a joke, and partly, as I said, because I need to receive mail. The door had a small mail slot at the bottom, and when I opened the door I discovered the post had, indeed, come. Three pieces of junk mail. I let it lie there, closed the door behind me, and switched on the light.
    The office was a small room with one window looking out over an air shaft. It was not the type of place that was conducive to entertaining clients, but then I had never had a client until Mr. Albrect had stumbled upon me the day before.
    The office was furnished with two desks, three chairs, a typing table, and a file cabinet. One desk was where I did my writing. The other was where I ran my detective business. The typewriter, on wheels, served both masters.
    The answering machine was on the detective’s desk. There were no messages, and for once I was glad. No messages meant no work, but I wasn’t ready for work yet. I slumped into the desk chair, and spread the newspaper out on the desk in front of me. I read the article again. It said the same thing it had the first time.
    Martin Albrect was dead. He had come to me for help. I hadn’t helped him. Now he was dead. There was no other way to look at it. But I did my best to come up with one.
    I hadn’t refused to help him, after all. I had merely pointed out why I wasn’t the best man he could have picked for the job. And he had agreed. Unhesitatingly, wholeheartedly agreed. Agreed so thoroughly that he had walked out, abandoning the thought of whatever small amount of help I might have been to him, and preferring to face his crisis alone.
    And I had toyed with him. Made fun of him. Made up stupid comic book names to ridicule his story. Amused myself with him. Done my damnedest not to take him seriously.
    I felt I ought to do something, but what? In the first place it was none of my business. In the second