Grief Street

chiseled words:

    Here lie
    Two grandparents with their two grandchildren
    Two husbands with their two wives
    Two fathers with their four children
    Two mothers each with daughter and son
    One maiden with her mother and father
    Sister and brother times two.
    Yet but six corpses all lie buried here,
    Though how this number, ’tis unclear.

    He sees how the tombstone is well sunk into the oily earthen floor, as would be so in a proper graveyard. He hears beetles and worms making way through close-packed dampness, and things with claws darting in shadows, and the click-click-click of unseen bats swooping through the velvet dark.
    He sees the crucifix, burnt crisp to black and suspended upside down above the stone. He rushes back up the steps.
    “God in heaven!”
    “Well, but now it’s neither godly nor heavenly as you claim.”
    “The stink down here!”
    “Like the sweet whiff of autopsy.”
    “And the meaning of the grave marker?”
    “Hah!” Spit flies. “As if you didn't know. It’s a fitting epitaph for what’s buried there—and for what’ll be buried yet.”
    “I don’t understand...” His heart thrashes. He puts a hand to his chest.
    “Of course you do, my fine old friend. The stone’s no mystery to you or me—merely to all others. In due time, the grandest detective of New York shall come discover the grave, and know the honor of solving the riddle we share.”

Twenty-three

    W e had a window booth at Kraft Restaurant, the neighborhood spoon. Wanda the waitress had greeted us with her usual “Hiya, honies” and sponged our table and set down coffee, and was now padding off to the kitchen to order up our scrambled eggs, bagels, and orange juice.
    Spilling over the damp Formica between us were the Daily News and the Post, with cover-page follow-ups to Friday’s murders. The reportage was mostly rehash and reaction—enough of both to keep the city frazzled—with only one new tidbit for public consumption: both tabloids had by now picked up on the connecting elements of the murders.
    The Post cover declared MURDER MOST WEIRD. Slattery’s account on page three was called “Cops Told of Shadow & Smell in Hell’s Kitchen Murders.” Not to be outdone in Purple headline prose, the Daily News banner read THE SHADOW KNOWS! A double-page inside spread—synopses of Uniform reports, lots of photographs, quotes from Fosdick 1,1 praise of myself, and also himself for putting me on the job—appeared under the block-lettered title SCENT OF A GHOST KILLER.
    Ruby and I were old news for the moment, for which I "'as grateful. And there was nothing further on the play or lts slippery author.
    I turned to the sports section in the Daily News and read a story about the Yankees spring training camp down in Florida and how Don Mattingly was not there this season. Which saddened me immensely. So I turned to the movie clock to check out the offerings.
    When I was through with the paper, I pushed it aside. Ruby was still doing the crossword puzzle in the Post. She looked up at me and smiled.
    “What’s a five-letter slang word beginning with / and ending with o that means adipose?” she asked.
    “Fatso.”
    “That’s right.”
    Ruby just kept smiling at me, making no move to fill in the squares with f-a-t-s-o. I decided to change the subject fast.
    “Today’s my day for the scut work of being a detective— checking through the uniform reports myself, double-checking with the forensics lab, revisiting the crime scenes.”
    “Sounds like drudgery.”
    “Well, it is. Unavoidable, though. Even for a detective on special assignment from the mayor, no less, charged with the job of routing the unholy murdering scourge of Hell’s Kitchen, and thereby soothing the raw nerves of all New York.”
    “That’s nice, dear.” Ruby folded up the newspaper in front of her. “Listen, I’m going to be making some telephone calls this morning. By this afternoon I’ll have a gym lined up for you, like we were talking about.”
    “I don’t remember talking about that.”
    “Oh? Well anyway, I'll see about having a personal trainer, too. He’ll work out some exercise routines for you.”
    “Come on—what's this all about?”
    “You’re becoming larger than life, Irish. I don’t mean in the heroic sense.”
    “A couple of pounds I might have put on, but—”
    “Face it, dear. You’re on your way to becoming a giant balloon floating over Broadway in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.” ;|J
    “By the