Read Online Westlake, Donald E - Novel 41 by Levine (v1.1) - Free Book Online Page A

a call from neighbors complaining about a couple
screaming and fighting and throwing things at one another, nine times out of
ten it's the same old thing they're arguing about. Money.
                  Levine's eyes traveled up the facade of the
building, beyond the loan company's windows. None of the windows higher up bore
the lettering of firm names. On the sixth floor, most of the windows were open, heads were sticking out into the air. And in the
middle of it all, just out of reach of the windows on either side of him, was
the man on the ledge.
                   Levine squinted, trying to see the man better
against the brightness of the day. He wore a suit —it looked gray, but might be
black —and a white shirt and dark tie, and the open suit coat and the tie were
both whipping in the breeze up there. The man was standing as though crucified,
back flat against the wall of the building, legs spread maybe two feet apart,
arms out straight to either side of him, hands pressed palm-in against the
stone surface of the wall.
                   The man was terrified. Levine was much too far
away to see his face or read the expression there, but he didn't need any more
than the posture of the body on the ledge. Taut, pasted to the wall,
wide-spread. The man was terrified.
                   Crawley was
right, of course. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the man on the ledge is a
phony. He doesn't really expect to have to kill himself, though he will do it
if pressed too hard. But he's out there on the ledge for one purpose and one
purpose only: to be seen. He wants to be seen, he wants to be noticed. Whatever
his unfulfilled demands on life, whatever his frustrations or problems, he
wants other people to be forced to be aware of them, and to agree to help him
overcome them.
                   If he gets satisfaction, he will allow
himself, after a decent interval, to be brought back in. If he gets the raise,
or the girl, or forgiveness from the boss for his embezzling, or forgiveness from his wife for his philandering, or whatever his one urgent
demand is, once the demand is met, he will come in from the ledge.
                   But there is one danger he doesn't stop to
think about, not until it's too late and he's already out there on the ledge,
and the drama has already begun. The police know of this danger, and they know
it is by far the greatest danger of the man on the ledge, much greater than any
danger of deliberate self-destruction.
                   He can fall.
                   This one had learned that danger by now, as
every inch of his straining taut body testified. He had learned it, and he was
frightened out of his wits,
                   Levine grimaced. The man on the ledge didn't
know —or if he knew, the knowledge was useless to him —that a terrified man can
have an accident much more readily and much more quickly than a calm man. And so the man on the ledge always compounded
his danger.
                   Crawley braked the Chevy to a stop at the curb, two doors beyond the
address. The rest of the curb space was already used by official vehicles. An ambulance, white and gleaming. A
smallish fire engine, red and full-packed with hose and ladders. A prowl
car, most likely the one on this beat. The Crash & Rescue truck, dark blue,
a first-aid station on wheels.
                   As he was getting out of the car, Levine
noticed the firemen, standing around, leaning against the plate-glass windows
of the bank, an eight foot net lying closed on the sidewzdk near them. Levine
took the scene in, and knew what had happened. The firemen had started to
op>en the net. The man on the ledge had threatened to jump at once if they
didn't take the net away. He could always jump to one side, miss the net. A net
was no good unless the person to be caught wanted to be caught. So the firemen
had closed up their net