Shotgun

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Detective Bert Kling went outside to throw up.

Coming down the corridor toward him, Detective Steve Carella saw the look on his face, said, “What’s the matter, kid?” as he brushed past, and then understood immediately. He hesitated before approaching the patrolman stationed outside the apartment door. Then, with a brief nod of resignation, he took his shield from where it was pinned inside his wallet, fastened it to the pocket of his suit jacket, exchanged only the shortest glance with the patrolman, and entered the apartment.

The building was on South Engels in an upper-middle-class area on the northern fringe of the 87th Precinct, not a part of Smoke Rise, nor even in that section of buildings lining the River Harb, but further east and somewhat less fashionable than either. The patrolman had been stationed outside the apartment’s service entrance, so that was where Carella went in. He found himself in a smallish kitchen with an abundance of tile, a spotlessly clean checkerboard vinyl floor, an equally clean, white enamel-top table, and appliances that noisily hummed with age.

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