Slow Recoil by C.B. Forrest Page B

the door all the way, and turned towards the kitchen. The place was a mess, the roost of a slovenly bachelor. He picked up his set of all-access keys and shrugged at McKelvey. “Let’s go take a look,” he said.
    In the elevator, McKelvey asked what the woman was like as a tenant, quiet or loud, on time or late with the rent. Any information was better than none. It was how any cop drew a picture of a suspect or a victim, by asking questions. In McKelvey’s experience it was often the detail someone else thought of as insignificant that helped close a loop.
    â€œYeah, well you know, she kept to herself pretty well. Wasn’t here that long. Six months I guess, maybe not even quite. She had a job, far as I could tell. I went up there just the once to fix her shower head,” and here the superintendant sort of smiled to himself at some real or imagined memory.
    â€œGuy like you running a building like this, you must get some good opportunities,” McKelvey said, an old pal, the detective’s job to find common ground, wink wink.
    Chinaski bared his teeth, yellow from cigarettes and coffee and no dental plan. “Time to time. ’Course, not nearly as much as I’d like,” he said. “Hey, it’s shit pay for a shit job. People yelling at you all the time. No respect, man.”
    â€œSounds familiar,” McKelvey said. “So listen, you didn’t get anywhere with Donia. Maybe you tried a line or two, but she wasn’t interested.”
    â€œShe seemed, I don’t know what you’d call it. Preoccupied.” Chinaski nodded to himself, satisfied with his word choice, as though he had finally summoned the question to one of Alex Trebeck’s answers. “The apartment was set up pretty basic, nothing homey. She seemed serious, is what I would say. Guess the Europeans are like that.”
    â€œShe was quiet, never had any issues?”
    â€œSure, yeah. Until recent. There was a loud argument in her unit a couple of nights ago, people called to complain. It’s got to be pretty loud for folks to bother calling me on a noise complaint. When I got up there, this guy was just leaving.”
    â€œWhat did he look like, you remember?
    â€œTall guy, pretty big in the shoulders. Buzzed hair. Not to be fucked with, you know. I mean, he was pretty hard looking. He just brushed right by me like he didn’t even see me. And then she was alone. She said her friend had left, and she promised there would be no more problems. But I could see that she was very upset, whatever had happened.”
    The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open. They walked down the hallway and stopped at the unit. Chinaski selected the right key from a couple of dozen on his belt chain, inserted it in the lock, and, before turning, and out of habit, called out: “Superintendent. Coming in.”
    The super held the door for McKelvey. As McKelvey stepped inside, Chinaski motioned to his eye with a few fingers, and said, “Mind me asking what happened?”
    McKelvey said, “Getting clumsy in my old age.”
    The apartment was exactly as McKelvey recalled. Empty. There was a smell of stale, closed air. The place still held the vibe, however, of expended kinetic energy, the invisible buzz of human activity. Something had happened here. An occurrence. It was a sense that was impossible to explain to someone who had never set foot in a crime scene. The corner store with the owner sprawled amidst the bags of chips and cheesies, two holes in his chest, blood pooled and already turning dark as cherry juice—and it was here now, despite the silence of the scene, this residue of limits exceeded in the pursuit of evil deeds.
    â€œWell, shit on a stick,” Chinaski said, nodding, taking it all in. “Must have been some quiet operation. Oh well, no loss. They was fully paid up for the month. Sure as hell didn’t need to be moving out in the middle of the night