Dark Maze

grainy head-and-shoulders shot of a guy somewhere way past his rookie days who had not shaved in a few days, wearing a Yankees cap and sunglasses. The point to publishing this escaped me.
    “What do you think?” I asked Ruby, holding up the picture for her to see.
    “So, that’s supposedly my Neil Hockaday?” She laughed softly. “No, I don’t think so. That guy looks like some ball-park lout, from the cheap seats.”
    “Thanks, it’s how I look about half the time. You really know how to make a guy feel adored.”
    Ruby laughed again and the lightness of her voice floated in the clean April breeze like a paper kite; she turned, as if watching the last easy moment of our day rise up and up until it faded from sight. Then she turned back to me, her mood grown heavy.
    “I wasn’t thinking about newspapers, actually,” she said. “I was thinking about something important.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like the dream I had last night.”
    There—it went through me again: the prickling shock of some odd recognition. Last night, the shock of the blue-eyed man rising from a coffin in Ruby’s play. Now the shock of a terrible closeness between us; knowing that Ruby could now take my place at dreaming.
    “What did you see?” I asked her.
    “Picasso, at his easel painting.”
    “What did he say?“
    “Nothing, it was nothing direct. But he gave me an idea „
    “What?”
    “To try looking at this murder case by Picasso’s lights. Try it, Hock. Shut your eyes. What do you see?”
    I closed my eyes. I saw Picasso’s masterpiece, the montage of demons and drowning mortals. I heard the music from the Unicef Pavilion, the children’s sweet voices singing, "It's a small world after all... ”
    Ruby asked again, “What do you see?”
    “Picasso’s mural at the Fire and Brimstone.”
    “That’s it, exactly! That’s the idea.”
    “But Ruby, I don’t get this idea.”
    “You imagine yourself thinking like Picasso would think,” she said slowly, allowing me time to catch up to her vision. “The idea is, you imagine you’re Picasso looking at the bodies dropping dead. Celia, Dr. Reiser, Benito. But you see how it’s not murder.”
    “Not murder?” I stopped myself, and then I began to see.
    “By Picasso’s lights, no,” Ruby said. “What you see is an artist painting about death.”
    I said, “Not murdering, painting... ”

    I finished my coffee, hung my new robe in Ruby’s closet, dressed and then left her place for my own. At home I would change into some fresh clothes, make some telephone calls and try to spend the rest of the day thinking like Picasso would think.
    All the way up the staircase to my apartment, I heard the telephone ringing.
    I sank down into my green chair, picked up my telephone and said, “Hello there, Inspector old sock. Nice of you to call.”
    There was a voice on the line that did not belong to Neglio. It was one of his two secretaries, the brunette who did not know how to type.
    She said, “Is this Detective Hockaday to whom I am
    speaking?”
    “Yes, dear, it is.”
    “Hold the line, please. I’m supposed to go get the inspector wherever he is.”
    I heard tiny heels click away across a tile floor. Then about a minute later the sound of a man’s size-tens came into range. Knowing what was likely to come next, I held the phone receiver several inches away from my ear.
    Then, Neglio’s bark: “Hock, where in the fuck have you been?”
    “Oh, just down at the newsstand buying extra copies of today’s Post. I want all my relatives to read my boss’s lovely sentiments on the topic of me.”
    “You haven’t got relatives, you hump. Except that screwy uncle of yours over on the other side.”
    I ignored the family slander. “That was a real load of crap you dumped on Slattery, Inspector.”
    “Hey, I don’t know what happened. The guy provoked me into a talky mood. You know how irritating he is. Slattery won’t ever get the hell away from me unless I give him something nobody else’s got.”
    “Come off it. I’m no super-cop. We both know what that was all about in the paper.”
    Like a rosy-cheeked old nun Neglio said, “Whatever do you mean?”
    “You’re putting this all on me. You’re busy making nice with the new mayor and along comes the first crime wave on his watch, so you want to be sure he gets the message there’s nothing you can do about it. Not you! Nobody in the department ever got in trouble by doing nothing, right?
    “Which is where