So Long As You Both Shall Live (87th Precinct) Read Online Free PDF

a rare occurrence, a detective coming into the luncheonette in the early hours of the morning. He lingered over the handshake, savoring it, and finally let Carella’s hand go.
    “Mr. Bailey?” Carella said.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “I wonder if you can tell me whether you saw anyone outside in the courtyard tonight?”
    “A person, do you mean?”
    “Yes. A person.”
    “No, sir, I did not see any person out there.”
    “What did you see?” Carella asked, suddenly realizing that Bailey had wanted clarification only because he’d seen something other than a person.
    “A truck,” Bailey said.
    “When was this?”
    “Pulled in around eleven o’clock, I would say. Around that time.”
    “What kind of a truck?”
    “A white one. Driver backed it in. Backed it all the way up the alley to where the hotel’s fire door is. You don’t see many of the delivery trucks doing that. Fellows usually drive them in headfirst, and then back them out when they’re leaving. This fellow backed it in all the way.”
    “How’d you happen to see it?” Carella asked. “Were you outside in the courtyard?”
    “In this weather? No, sir, ” Bailey said. “I saw it through the windows there.” He gestured with the broom toward the grease-stained windows over the stove. The windows were set about five feet above the floor. Bailey was a thin scarecrow of a man, tall enough to have seen through the windows easily—if they’d been clean. But looking through them now, Carella had the feeling that a veil had been dropped over his eyes. He could barely make out the brick wall of the apartment building on the right, and could certainly not see the fire door of the hotel on the left.
    “You saw the truck through these windows, huh?” Carella said.
    “Yes, sir, I did. I know what you’re thinking, sir. You’re thinking I’m an old man wearing these thick eyeglasses here, and those windows are filthy, so how could I see anything out there in the courtyard? Well, sir, the windows are filthy, that’s true, but I’m used to looking through them that way, and I see all sorts of things out there, especially in the summertime when sometimes the chambermaids are out there with the bellhops. Not in the winter, mind you. Too cold. Freeze their behinds off out there. The thing people usually forget about anybody who wears eyeglasses, no matter how thick those glasses may be, is that the glasses are there to correct the person’s vision, do you understand? Man can see just fine when he’s got his glasses on. It’s only when he takes them off, he can’t see too well.”
    “What kind of a truck did you say it was?” Carella asked.
    “A white one. Must’ve been a milk truck, don’t you think? Or a bakery truck.”
    “Would they normally make deliveries at eleven o’clock?” Carella asked.
    “No, that’s right, they usually don’t, leastways I’ve never seen them. Maybe it was a linen truck. I would guess the hotel gets lots of linens picked up and delivered, wouldn’t you guess?”
    “Mr. Bailey, you didn’t see any lettering on the truck, did you?”
    “No, sir. I only saw the back of the truck. It backed in. Stopped near the fire door there.”
    “And you didn’t see anyone getting out of the truck.”
    “No, sir. I just looked out when I heard the truck, and then I went back to my work. I thought at first it might’ve been a delivery for us, you see, and I was worried about what to do, since they don’t give me no money to pay for deliveries, and besides, I’ve never had one at night all the time I’ve been working here. But nobody knocked on the door, so I figured it wasn’t for us. Tell you the truth, when you knocked on the door, I thought that might be a delivery, too.”
    “When did the truck leave, Mr. Bailey, can you tell me that?”
    “Must’ve been about eleven-thirty. I didn’t see it leaving, mind you, but I heard it, and I looked up at the clock. It was just about eleven-thirty, give or