Solomon Guthrie lived alone in a six-room apartment on Riverside Drive near 86th Street. The prewar building had gone co-op in 1974, and Guthrie had bought his apartment for $59,500. His wife had told him it was a lot of money- and it was, at the time. And why, she had asked, did they need so much space since their two grown sons had moved away: Jacob, an ophthalmologist, to Minneapolis, and Alan, an aerospace designer, to Los Angeles.
But Solomon didn't want to give up an apartment he loved and in which he and his wife had lived most of their married life. Besides, he said, it would be a good investment, and it turned out to be exactly that, with similar apartments in the building now selling for $750,000 to a million.
Then Hilda died in 1978, of cancer, and Solomon was alone in the six rooms. His sons, their wives and children visited at least once a year, and that was a treat. But generally he lived a solitary life. After all these years it was still a wrench to come home to an empty house, especially on dark winter nights.
Every weekday morning Guthrie left his apartment at 7:30, picked up his Times from a marble table in the lobby, and walked over to West End Avenue to get a taxi heading south. An hour later and it would be almost impossible to find an empty cab, but Solomon usually had good luck before eight o'clock.
This particular morning was cold, bleak, with a damp wind blowing off the river. He was glad he had worn his heavy overcoat. He was also wearing fur-lined gloves and lugging his old briefcase stuffed with work he had taken home the night before. One of the things he had labored over was a schedule of Christmas bonuses for Starrett employees.
Solomon arrived at the southwest corner of West End and 86th Street, stepped off the curb, looked uptown. There was a cab parked across 86th, but the off-duty light was on, and the driver appeared to be reading a newspaper. He moved farther into the street to see if any other cabs were approaching. He raised an arm when he saw one a block away, coming down West End.
But then the cab parked across 86th went into action. The off-duty light flicked off, the driver tossed his newspaper aside, and the cab came gunning across the street and pulled up in front of Solomon. He opened the back door and crawled in with some difficulty, first hoisting his briefcase and newspaper onto the seat, then twisting himself into the cramped space and turning to slam the door.
"Good morning," he said.
"Where to?" the driver said without turning around.
"The Starrett Building, please. Park Avenue between Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh."
He settled back and unbuttoned his overcoat. He put on his reading glasses and began to scan the front page of the Times. Then he became conscious of the cab slowing, and he looked up. Traffic lights were green as far as he could see, but his taxi was stopping between 78th and 77th streets, pulling alongside cars parked at the curb.
"Why are you stopping here?" he asked the driver.
"Another guy going south," the driver said. "You don't mind sharing, do you?"
"Yes, I mind," Guthrie said angrily. "I'm paying you full fare to take me where I want to go, and I have no desire to stop along the way to pick up-"
He was still talking when the cab stopped. A man wearing a black fur hat and short leather coat came quickly from between parked cars and jerked open the passenger door.
"Hey!" Guthrie cried. "What the hell do you think-"
But then the stranger was inside, crouching over him, the door was slammed, and the cab took off with a chirp of tires.
"What-" Guthrie started again, and then felt a sear in his abdomen, a flash of fire he couldn't understand until he looked down, saw the man stab him again. He tried to writhe away from that flaming blade, but he was pressed back into a corner, his homburg and glasses falling off as the man stabbed again and again, sliding the steel in smoothly, withdrawing, inserting it. Then he stopped.
"Make sure," the driver said, not turning.
"I'm sure," the assailant said, and pushed Guthrie's body onto the floor. Then he sat down, wiped his blade clean on Solomon's overcoat, and returned the knife to a handsome leather sheath strapped to his right shin.
The cab stopped for the light at 72nd Street. When it turned green, it went south to 71st, made a right into the dead-end street, drove slowly between parked cars to a turnaround at the western end.
The cab stopped on the curve and the two men looked about casually. There was a woman walking a Doberman farther east, but no one else was on the street.
"Let's go," the driver said.
Both men got out of the cab and closed the doors. They paused a moment to light cigarettes, then walked toward West End Avenue, not too fast, not too slow.