“You don’t need to. This isn’t business. Papers found on the body indicate that it was Marko Vukcic. Purley says there’s no doubt about it, two of the dicks knew him by sight, but he wants me to come down and give positive identification. If you have no objection I’m going. It won’t be as pleasant a way to spend an evening as going to a ball game, but I’m sure he would have done as much...”
I would have preferred to go on talking, but had to stop to clear my throat. Wolfe had put down his knife and fork, quietly and properly, on his plate. His eyes were leveled at me, but he wasn’t scowling. A corner of his mouth twitched, and after a moment twitched again. To stop it he compressed his lips.
He nodded at me. “Go. Phone.”
“Have you any—”
“No. Phone.”
I whirled and went.
After going a block south on Tenth Avenue and flagging a taxi on Thirty-fourth Street, it didn’t take long to roll cross-town to the city mortuary on East Twenty-ninth; and, since I was not a stranger there and was expected, I was passed through the railing and on in with no questions asked. I have never cared for the smell of that place. An assistant medical examiner named Faber tried once to sell me the idea that it smells just like a hospital, but I have a good nose and I didn’t buy. He claimed that there are rarely more than one or two cadavers on the premises not in the coolers, and I said in that case someone must spray the joint with something to make it smell like a morgue.
The Homicide dick who escorted me down the corridor was one I knew only well enough to nod to, and the assistant ME in the room we entered was one I hadn’t run across before. He was working on an object that was stretched out on a long table under a strong light, with a helper standing by. The dick and I stood and watched a minute. A detailed description of the performance would help only if you expect to be faced with the job of probing a corpse for a bullet that entered at an angle between the fifth and sixth ribs, so I won’t go into it.
“Well?” the dick demanded.
“Yes,” I told him. “I identify it as the body of Marko Vukcic, owner of Rusterman’s Restaurant. If you want that signed, get it ready while I go use the phone.”