Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg Read Free Book Online Page B

the phone book out of the desk and ran my finger down a page in the K section. There was a listing for a Krusemark, Ethan and a Krusemark Maritime, Inc., as well as a Krusemark, M., Astrological Consultations. This one seemed worth a try. The address was 881 Seventh Avenue. I dialed the number and let it ring. A woman answered.
    “I got your name through a friend,” I said. “Personally, I don’t put much stock in the stars, but my fiancee is a true believer. I thought I’d surprise her and have both our horoscopes done.”
    “I charge fifteen dollars per chart,” the woman said.
    “Fine by me.”
    “And I don’t do any consulting over the phone. You’ll have to make an appointment.”
    I said that was also fine and asked if she had an opening today.
    “My desk calendar is completely clean for the afternoon,” she said, “so whatever is convenient for you.”
    “How about right away? Say in half an hour?”
    “That would be wonderful.”
    I gave her my name. She thought my name was wonderful, too, and told me her apartment was in Carnegie Hall. I said I knew where to find it and hung up.

ELEVEN
    I took the uptown BMT to 57th Street and climbed the exit stairs that let me out on the corner by the Nedick’s in Carnegie Hall. A bum shuffled up and tapped me for a dime as I headed for the Studio entrance. Across Seventh Avenue one block down, a picket line paraded in front of the Park Sheraton.
    The lobby of the Carnegie Hall Studios was small and barren of decoration. Two elevator doors stood on the right, flanking a mailbox fed by a glass chute. There was a back entrance to the Carnegie Tavern around the corner on 56th and a wall directory. I looked for Krusemark, M., Astrological Consultations, and found her listed on the eleventh floor.
    The brass indicator over the left-hand elevator described a descending arc through a semicircle of floor numbers like a clock running backward. The arrow paused at 7 and again at 3 before coming to rest horizontally. A large Great Dane was first off, rugging a stout woman in a fur coat. They were followed by a bearded man carrying a cello case. I got in and gave the floor number to an ancient operator who resembled a Balkan army pensioner in his ill-fitting uniform. He looked at my shoes and said nothing. After a moment, he shoved the metal gate closed and we started up.
    There were no stops until I got off at eleven. The hallway was long and wide and as drab as the lobby downstairs. Folded canvas firehoses hung at intervals along the walls. Several pianos debated dissonantly behind closed doors. In the distance, I heard a soprano warming up, trilling through the scales.
    I found M. Krusemark’s apartment. Her name was painted on the door in gold letters, and beneath it an odd symbol which looked like the letter M with an upturned arrow as a tail. I rang the bell and waited. High-heeled footsteps tapped on the floor inside, a lock was turned, and the door opened to the limit of the police chain securing it.
    An eye regarded me out of the shadows. The voice that went with it asked, “Yes?”
    “I’m Harry Angel,” I said. “I called earlier about an appointment.”
    “Why, of course. Just a minute, please.” The door closed, and I heard the chain sliding free. When the door reopened, the eye was one of a cat-green pair set in a pale, angular face. They burned within discolored hollows beneath dark, heavy brows. “Do come in,” she said, standing aside for me to enter.
    She was dressed all in black, like a weekend bohemian in a Village coffeehouse; black wool skirt and sweater, black stockings, even her thick, black hair was held in a bun with what looked to be a pair of ebony chopsticks. Walt Rigler indicated she was about thirty-six or thirty-seven years old, but without any makeup she looked much older. She was very thin, almost gaunt, her meager breasts barely discernible beneath the heavy folds of her sweater. Her only ornament was a gold medallion hanging around