"Lead With Your Left" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lacy Ed)

Lead With Your Left

Ed Lacy

This page formatted 2004 Blackmask Online.

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This is entirely a work of fiction; all names, characters, and incidents are purely imaginary. While I hope the people in the book seem like real people, they are not intended to represent any specific person or persons, living, dead, or about to be born.

E.L.

Tuesday Night

It was a few minutes before eleven when I unlocked our door. The dumb lamp we had in the two-by-four “foyer” was on. The lamp looked like a drippy flower and cost fifty-seven bucks strictly because it was imported from Denmark. If all their lamps are like this job they must be blind over there. I could just about make out the couch opened as a bed, was surprised Mary was in the hay so early. I called out softly, “Babes?” She didn't answer.

I took off my coat and tie, then my shoulder holster, went through my pockets and put everything on the table beside the lamp. I dropped my suit on the floor; it was due for the cleaner's anyway and we only had one closet and no room for soiled clothes. I went to the John and washed, afraid I'd wake Mary if I moved the Chinese screen in front of our “kitchenette” for a snack. For a hundred and twenty bucks a month you'd think we'd have room enough to move around. But not at this “good” address on East Sixty-ninth Street. Still I couldn't entirely blame Mary, I got some kicks out of living in a swank joint, and all the modern nutty furniture we were in hock for. And yesterday almost all my pay check went for old bills. What kicks.

But the old railroad flat in the Bronx had its features too. Like now I could go way up to the front room and get the news on TV, see who'd won the fight as I worked on an apple. But no TV watching in a one-room apartment, not even a swank one. Turning out the damn light I carefully threaded my way through the furniture and climbed into the sack.

Bed felt great. I'd been going since eight in the morning. Staring up at the darkness I wondered if Ed Owens had lived in a hundred-and-twenty-buck apartment. I saw Owens in the alley again. The wrong angle his body made said he had to be dead. Who dropped the newspaper over his face, the headline and pictures about the ball game? Why don't they want anybody to see a dead face? Or maybe the dead don't want to see us live jokers.

Mary had a heavy way of breathing, almost a light snore. I didn't hear it so she wasn't asleep, just laying there sore as a boil at me. I reached under the cover for her hips. She wasn't wearing one of my old shirts, but those damn ski-pajamas she bought to spite me. When my fingers found her she pulled away. I said, “Look, honey, I did try to call—at six—but you weren't home. I got stuck on a big case.”

“Sure, you put in overtime, four to eleven, seven hours—a day's work on a normal job. What did you get, time and a half or double time, for it?”

She had that nasty shrillness to her voice that reminded me of Mom when she was steamed, way she sounded when she knew I was out boxing. The shrillness that meant—with both Mary and Mom—that talking was a waste of time. But I was so full of it I had to talk. “Look, Babes, this is real big. I was in on the killing of an ex-cop. Guy named Ed Owens was shot down right in—”

“I'm not interested!”

“Mary, this was one of these dumb killings where a—”

“I couldn't care less!”

I sat up in bed. “A man who'd been a good cop, gave almost thirty years of his life to protecting people, was shot down in an alley. Sure,- you're not interested, nobody is. That's the trouble today, nobody gives a fat damn about any-. thing or—”

Mary turned over, faced me in the darkness. “Dave, you came home seven goddam hours late, seven hours, so I'm hardly in the mood for any of your childish speeches.”

She said “childish” to steam me but I said evenly, “Maybe Owens' wife doesn't think it's a speech. Maybe she's wondering what the hell living is all about when a retired cop has to work as a twenty-five-buck-a-week messenger and gets killed in the bargain. Some bargain!”

“Is that what I have to look forward to, Dave, you lying dead in the street some night? My God, what do you think was going through my head when you didn't come home?”

I found her shoulder in the darkness, held it when she tried to turn away. “Babes, I said I tried to phone you. That was the only time I was near a phone. Had the big brass from downtown with me, couldn't get away even for a moment. Another thing, this is why I'm so interested in this case, I kept thinking if this was going to be me, working as a lousy messenger when I'm too old to be a cop. Nothing makes sense about the killing, no motive, no—”

“You're too old to be a cop now! Dave, I can't take this much longer.”

“Now Mary, let's not start that.”

“Why not?” she asked loudly and I knew her mouth was a hard line the way it always got when she was angry. When I first met her I thought that hard line was cute, used to tease her just to see the red lips fade into a line and finally burst into a big smile. “I come home and make supper, sit around jumping out of my skin wondering what's happened to you. And at eleven o'clock my husband comes home and makes some small talk about his job—he talks about a killing!”

“Small talk? Damnit, an ex-cop was killed this afternoon!”

“I don't want to hear about it!”

“It concerns you, concerns everybody. A cop was killed!”

“Davie, the boy do-gooder! I don't want it to concern me. And let go of my shoulder, or is this the loving touch, the third degree?”

“That's dumb talk,” I said, letting go of her. “And don't start crying.” I reached out and snapped on the indirect lights that ran along the back of the studio couch. Even in the middle of the night Mary always looked sharp, her blonde hair tidy, the curves of her breasts trim even in the damn pajamas. I reached for one of the curves and she slapped at my hand and missed.

Anyway she wasn't going to bawl. When she's real mad Mary gets into a cold rage like she was about to spit ice. I looked at the hard line of her mouth and knew she wasn't going to cry at all: she was going to talk.

“A husband and wife can usually talk over what happened to them during the day, the office gossip and jokes, but what am I supposed to ask you? Who you caught robbing? What pimp you hit? And when can we ever talk? You work these crazy hours, nights, days, middle of the days, Saturdays, Sundays. You're off Thursday and Friday this week—a big week end ahead for me! Dave, what kind of a life do we have? I want to go out and see people, take in a movie on a Saturday night, but you're only off one week end a month. I get up in the morning and see my husband getting his tools ready for the day—a gun and a blackjack. And for what? I'm just a steno in the agency yet my take-home pay is larger than yours.”

“In a little while I'll be making full salary. And I'll be eligible for retirement when I'm forty-one,” I said and kept seeing Owens' puffy dead face. What kind of job could I get after twenty years as a cop? A store cop, guard, messenger? Why should a guy need a job when he retired? What was the point in retiring? “Babes, be reasonable, I'm doing okay. What the hell, I've no trade, only one year of college—you want me to be a forty-buck-a-week stock clerk?”

“Yes. You're an eager beaver. Start out as a stock clerk and in time you could be a sales manager or—”

“Or/and own the firm. Stop talking like a movie. Last year when I was sweating in that five and dime for thirty-eight bucks a week, they gave me a movie title—I was one of the 'assistant managers' instead of stock boy. Mary, you were all for me taking Civil Service exams: okay, now I'm a cop, I have—”

“Of course I wanted you to take the exams and get out of that horrible store basement. But if I'd known the risks you take as a cop, the crazy hours, the way it would shake up our life, I would have been against it then.”

“The point is I did take the exam and I'm a cop now, I have a trade. I've only been working five or six months at it. In time I'll be making a decent salary, take other exams and maybe become a captain. Give me a chance.”

She shook her head and most of her trim body under the pajamas shook too. “Don't try to sell me, I know the pitch—you're David Wintino, the youngest detective on the force. Want me to take out the newspaper picture of the Commissioner shaking your hand?” She paused. “And I wasn't talking like a movie before. Some people do get ahead. Clerks do become executives—when they have somebody behind them. Uncle Frank called me at the office, asked why you haven't been down to see him.”

“I thought there was something beside my coming home late. How's his ulcer?”

“Very funny!”

“Babes, I'm not interested in the freight business or in being the boss's pet relation.”

“You were interested when he used his influence to keep you off the Youth Squad, or the times you got into trouble socking other cops—you didn't worry about his ulcer then! Dave, I said I can't take much more of this and I mean it. I'll be jittery as a sick cat in the office tomorrow and you know the way things are there—I goof once and I can forget about ever becoming Mr. Jackman's secretary. You're just selfish, you're always against everything I want. You didn't want to live in a decent apartment, you argued about the furniture, you don't like my friends—I've taken enough from you!”

“I know, now tell me how you stood up to your hundred and fifty per cent all-American family when they found they were getting a Jew and an Italian in the family, all in one package.”

Her mouth opened wide now and her pug nose quivered and her eyes went big as she gasped, “David! That's a dirty, horrible, lousy thing to say!”

“Yeah, it was. Sorry, Babes. I'm on edge.”

She got under the cover, turned her back to me. I put out the light. After a moment I could hear her weeping. I rolled her over, kissed her, her hair so soft and her skin cool where it wasn't wet with tears. I held her tight, a little proud that this beautiful chick was mine. For a moment that was all that mattered. “Honey,” I whispered, “I don't mean to make you cry. We'll work things out.”

“Will we, Davie?” she said in my ear, her lips warm.

“Of course we will. Okay, I'll go have a talk with your uncle.”

“And nothing will come of it. You like being a detective?”

“Babes, you want me to soft-talk you? All right, I like the job.”

Mary rolled out of my arms, said to the darkness, “Know why you like it? Because you're cocky, a know-it-all, and being a detective makes you feel good, you like authority, bossing people. You and your pretty face, you like that part of it too. You even enjoy looking like a seventeen-year-old sharpie—you eat up the amazed look when people finally believe you are a real cop, a detective.”

“Lay off me. Somebody has to be a cop,” I said weakly.

“Somebody doesn't have to be my husband!”

“And if anything happened you'd break your back screaming for the police. You're like all the other fine law-abiding citizens.”

“That's it exactly, whenever I need a cop I'll call for one. That's much different from being a cop's wife.”

“How do you know, you never tried being a cop's wife.”

She shrilled, “Go ahead, say you resent my working. You'd like me to mope around the house like a glorified maid, thinking up ways of cooking supper for my big strong provider, whenever he decides to give the little lady a break and come home. Wise up. That corn went out with silent pictures. If I ever find myself doing that I'll give you a fine supper each night—right in your face!”

I pulled her to me again, held her when she pushed me away, my hands going over all the curves I knew so well. “Listen to me, Mary, I—”

“I won't listen.”

“Yes, you will. This is you and me talking in bed, not a couple of strangers shacking up for the night. You want to work, a career—great. I never asked or wanted you to spend all your time handling a dust mop or a frying pan. I never tell you to change your job. Why can't you understand that being a cop is my work, something I think is important? That's what I mean by being a cop's wife. Honey, before you get too set up in this advertising business, let's have a kid.”

“What?”

“I want a baby,” I said, not really sure if I wanted one so soon. “We have a child now, by the time he's fifteen, we'll only be thirty-six, we'll all be pals. Have your career but let's make a baby first. And in a year—you'll only be twenty-two or—three by then—we'll get somebody to look after the baby and you can go back to the agency business again. I don't know, maybe that's what we need to settle us. Don't you want a kid?”

“Not this way. I want my baby to have a father not a lousy posthumous medal. No, Davie.” She started pushing again and I let go of her.

“What's this add up to, the kiss-off, Mary?” ..

“You know now where I stand. As to how it's going to add, that's for you to decide, Dave. Are you married to me or to your badge? I told you, I mean it. And I do, really.”

That was a wallop that shook all the tiredness out of me. “You realize what the hell you're saying?”

“I certainly do because I know what fun it was before you got on the force. Even when we were living in that crummy room and watching our pennies. It was fun then. It isn't now. Good night, David.”

“Good night, Mary.” I turned toward the windows. Outside a car went by now and then, in the distance a horn sounded, then the small scream of brakes. We ever got the furniture paid up, we could get on rubber ourselves, a good secondhand heap—although Mary would want a new car. Our marriage was getting to be one of those deals where everything had to be her way. And I'm selfish! Didn't matter whether I wanted to work for Uncle Frank or not. Uncle Frank, what a case. Him and his silly wife and those fat-assed kids who acted like a couple of fags.

But what had happened to us? Babes was right, it had been great in the beginning. Even when I was a soldier and Mary had to sneak out of her house to see me. Maybe I was her way of getting to New York City, a one-way ticket from the hick town? Naw, that wasn't fair, Babes was the best at times. Maybe it was her job: ever since she'd gone on this Madison Avenue lack she'd been rough. Trouble was, lately I felt as if I'd married Mom and... damn, hadn't phoned the folks in a couple of days, not since last Friday.

For no reason I suddenly saw the old flat, Mom shrilling, “You're trying to kill my baby!” Her gray hair all wild-looking and her face so pale.

She had to say “baby.” And Dom Franzino rubbing his bald head, embarrassed as he said, “But Mrs. Wintino, he ain't no baby. He's a natural welter and going on eighteen. Ten amateur fights with nine kayos. Nine kayos, Mrs. Wintino. Dave can take a man out with his left. Fans go for a puncher, go nuts over a left-hook artist. And his baby puss won't hurt none. He'll make a fortune, a—”

“Killing my baby,” Mom moaned, wringing her hands, her face looking as if it was coming apart at the wrinkles. “No... never!”

Dom stared at me as if asking what the hell I'd got him into. Then Pop coughed slightly, said in Italian, “Mr. Franzino, my wife is becoming sick. We will talk this over, let you know our decision.”

I grinned at the darkness. Two weeks later I was in the army. Mom used to cry about me getting drafted, now she was relieved. My left screwed up the army for me, never left the States—spent all my time on a service boxing team in Salt Lake City, fighting a few bootleg pro bouts for the hell of it.

I turned over again and got comfortable. Mary was really sleeping now. I told myself, okay, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Boxers like Robinson, the Kid, Olson, would have cut you to pieces. Of course if you ever managed to hit them, just one real clout... That's over, never was. And in the morning Mary will feel better. I should have phoned her, could have done it easily enough. Forget all this wind. All I should be thinking About is finding who killed Ed Owens. Think about that and only that.

It was a little after two in the afternoon. Danny Hayes and I had returned to the precinct house from talking to a shop owner who claimed a couple of blouses had been lifted from his counters. He was a big help, all he could say was, “It was a couple of tall women. They came in while I was busy and walked out again. All I remember is they were tall.” He didn't expect us to do anything, was merely reporting it for his insurance claim. We'd just parked in front of the station house when Lieutenant Reed, in charge of the Detective Squad, and Captain Lampkin, the boss of the precinct, came running down the old brick steps, jumped into our squad car as Lampkin said, “Killing. West End and Seventy-eighth. Stick-up. Get the siren working.” Lampkin was a big sloppy square who always talked like a teletype message.

Danny was driving and it was kind of cool for May so he was wearing the dirty trench coat that showed off his thick shoulders—made him look like something off a TV screen, except they never have colored detectives on TV. He made it pretty fast but Danny can't wheel a car like I can.

There were two radio cars plus the usual afternoon crowd of curious housewives when we got there. It was one of these old but still ritzy big houses, seven- and eight-room apartments. The body was at the entrance to the delivery alley that led to the back of the house, a plump man in a worn suit, the frayed collar on his white shirt and the dirty tie all bloody. One foot was bent far under the body in a position that would have hurt like hell if he'd been alive. He was wearing heavy socks with the ends of gray winter underwear stuck in them, high black shoes that needed resoling. There was the newspaper with the picture of a ball game over his face and above it thick grayish hair and an old sweat-stained brown _hat a few feet from his head. When Reed pulled back the paper this puffy face with some red veins in the long nose stared up at us with mild surprise.

All his pockets were turned out, the inside pocket torn. There was a torn wallet, a crumpled pack of butts, keys, a bulky old lighter, and a pack of mints scattered on the cement floor near his body.

The beat cop, an old beerhound, slipped Lampkin a halfhearted salute as he told him, “I found him at six minutes before two, Walter—Captain. Only witness we got so far is this” —he jerked a big thumb at a frightened young colored fellow in work pants and a torn army jacket—“who says he was coming out after delivering an order, groceries, when he seen the stiff. He yelled and I come a-running from the corner.”

“God is me witness I never saw him before! I know nothing except the man is stretched on the bloody stone!” the delivery man said nervously. He spoke with a kind of British accent.

Lieutenant Reed gave Danny the eye. Danny went over and said softly, “Relax, homie, and tell me exactly what you saw. And don't worry, you're in no trouble. What island you from?”

“Trinidad, and I'm here all legal and—”

“Sure,” Dan said gently. “My old man was from Barbados. Let's you and me step over here and talk a little.”

Captain Lampkin pushed his cap back as he scratched his head. “Homicide will be here soon, along with the rest of the boys. Touch anything, Buddy?”

“Now, Walter, long as I been a cop. Nobody has touched anything. I just spread the paper over his face. But see under his coat there, on the left side, that's a hip holster. Probably one of them little foreign automatics. Want me to pull the coat back, take his gun?”

“No, we'll wait,” Lampkin said, taking off his cap to scratch his fat head. “Yeah, does look like a holster. But I wouldn't pick him for a punk or a hood.”

Lieutenant Reed waited politely for Lampkin to stop talking, then quietly told me to get the janitor and start questioning the people in the house. The superintendent was no janitor, he had a regular little office with a typewriter and a desk. He was an old Swede wearing a starched collar and a worn blue suit. He said he was in his office when he heard somebody yelling police and came out to find the beat cop with the delivery man. He'd never seen the stiff before. I got his name down, along with the owners of the building and I was pretty excited—this wasn't the first dead man I'd seen, but it was the first gun killing. I found a couple of maids who'd been using the laundry room and didn't know a thing, but I put them in my notebook.

The alley began to fill up fast as the routine went into full swing. Some big cluck from Homicide was there, looking very important, a heavy-set square whose suit was too small— probably didn't know yet that big men can't buy bargain clothes. He had a fat baby mouth and a necklace of chins. The sonofabitch put me in the mood to pop him, and the rest of the men laughing, when he first saw me and asked, “What you doing here, sonny? The super's son?”

When Reed said, “He's one of my squad, Detective Wintino,” this big hunk of blubber did a hammy double-take as he said, “Jeez, he don't look old enough to be a Boy Scout.”

In less than fifteen minutes the photographers and lab men had finished. The stiff Was Edward Owens, a retired cop—he had his Police Benevolent Association card in his wallet, along with a buck and a Chinese laundry ticket. He was working as a messenger for a brokerage house down on Wall Street. His gun, a .38 Police Special, hadn't been used and he'd been killed with one slug through the heart, fired at fairly close range. Reed had a couple of more detectives working and they hadn't found anybody who had heard the shot or noticed anyone in the service entrance. I thought I was going to be stuck going through the apartment houses across the street looking for witnesses, but Lampkin had called downtown for a detail to go to the brokerage house and have everybody there stand still. The Homicide clown decided he'd better go down too and Reed said, “Dave will drive you, he's a speed boy.”

“Regular hot-rod lad, I bet,” Homicide said.

I sirened the car down West End Avenue, then cut over to the West Side Highway. The lump was named Anderson and he chewed on a wad of gum and told me, “All right, Sonny, the guy's long dead, won't make no diff to him if we get downtown in ten minutes or fifty minutes. But it does to me —I want to get there alive.”

“Relax, you're still breathing—or are you?”

“Don't know what the force is coming to, punks like you not old enough to have the milk on your mouth dry or—”

“Fatstuff, you already made too many cracks about my being young. You want to guess ages, get a job in Coney Island.”

He looked me over like he was alone in the car. “Snotty kid, too. Getting so a man—”

“Want to stop the car and see who's the best man?”

“Jeez, I'm not only more than twice your age, Wintino, but... What land of a name is that?”

“It's my name and I like it,” I said, weaving in and out of the highway traffic. We were doing fifty-five and he was so scared he was holding onto the door with one hand and his chins were dancing. I wasn't doing it just to frighten him. Fast driving gives me a bang.

“... But I could also write you up and—”

“Do that. And you know where you can shove it.”

He sighed. “Maybe you're right. Young as you look you must be the mayor's bastard son to be on the force.” He sighed again, tried to calm his nerves by working on his gum. “How do you like this Owens working as a messenger? Goddamn papers always so quick-to say cops are on the take; they ought to do a piece on Owens. But they won't.”

“Probably had a pension of three grand. Hell, I'm only making a couple bucks more than that now.”

Anderson shrugged, nearly put his big feet through the floorboard as I cut around a car. “I could take my pension today but with prices so high, what's the use. Pension is okay if you already got your house paid up, the kids set, no sickness. Only how can you ever get that far ahead on our salary? Wintino... You're the rookie who made the big arrest couple months ago. Sure, I remember now, this drunk parked next to a hydrant and he turned out to be the psycho who knocked off all them women. A lucky collar.”

“Yeah.” Everybody called it pure luck, forgot that if I hadn't been thinking of those four dames with the battered heads all the time, I wouldn't have connected the rusty length of iron pipe in the glove compartment with the women.

I cut across the highway, shot down the ramp to the street as Anderson yelled, “Damnit, you think this has wings?”

There was a radio car parked in front of the office building and as we braked to a stop, the siren still working, a lot of people stopped and I gave my hair a pat as I jumped out. I don't believe in looking sloppy. A well-built, solid-looking cop said to Anderson, “I've been holding an elevator for you. Room 619.” It wasn't hard to spot Anderson for a dick.

The brokerage firm was a suite of three large offices with about a half a dozen stenos pounding typewriters. They all stopped talking when we came in. A couple of them were good-looking. A cop was talking to a tall thin guy wearing a dull gray suit and one of these old-fashioned pop-'em bow ties that had to be at least ten years old. At one time the guy must have been lean and in shape, now he looked shrunken and skinny. His eyes were tired and bloodshot, his features thin, and face wide. His hair was a lousy dye job, jet black. He looked about sixty and judging from the patches of stubble around his long jaw he still didn't know how to shave.

Anderson flashed his badge and so did I, but mine was on my belt. May look corny but I like to have both hands free. The cop nodded at the bag of bones, said, “This is Al Wales.”

“I'm a retired detective. Fact is Ed and I were partners. If you'll step in here,” Wales motioned with his head toward a small office, “I pan give you all the dope you need. We'd also appreciate it if you'd remove the officer from the door and let business go on as usual. You know how it is, looks bad for a house dealing in bonds. Whatever happened to Ed, the dirty bastards who did him in had nothing to do with his job here.”

“The cop stays,” Anderson said. “You in charge here?”

“No, I'm merely a part-time messenger, like Ed is—was. Step into the office and I'll have Mr. Stewart, our manager, join us.”

“We can talk here,” Anderson told him.

“What's the point in making a show?”

“Get this Stewart,” Anderson said, looking around at the stenos. “I'm in a hurry.”

“Don't be a horse's ass!” Wales' voice had been tired but now it turned into a kind of whip. And he seemed to pull himself together. I bet he'd been a rough Oscar in his time. Then he added in a lower voice, “Don't be a fool, they'll yell to City Hall—this isn't any two-bit outfit. Told you it looks bad for business.”

Anderson stared at Wales, trying to decide what he was going to do about it. He decided to do nothing. “Okay, we'll go in the office. Now get this Stewart guy.” He turned to the cop. “But nobody goes out till I tell you.”

The office was four plain chairs around a polished oak table with a clean glass ash tray in the center. There were a couple of framed pictures of apartment houses on the walls. Wales called out something to one of the girls as we went in and Anderson planted his large backside on the table. Wales stood by the door and I glanced out the window: we weren't up high enough for a view of the harbor or anything interesting. A plump joker with crew-cut gray hair, expensive brown pin-stripe suit and a sweet tie, strode into the office. I mean strode, he must have practiced it. The walk matched his salesman face. He said, “Gentlemen! I'm Harris Stewart, office manager. Mr. Wyckoff, president of the firm, is in Washington. This is indeed a terrible piece of news about Mr. Owens. Simply incredible—there's absolutely no point to a robbery.”

“Where was Owens going?” Anderson asked.

“According to the time sheet he checked out at five after one to deliver bonds to a client, a Mr. Jensen McCarthy who lives at 316 West End Avenue. Mr. Owens never delivered the bonds so we—”

“How do you know he didn't?” I asked as Anderson gave me an annoyed look.

“Mr. McCarthy was waiting for them and he phoned a few minutes before you, that is the police, called to tell us the horrible news. Mr. McCarthy was in a hurry to leave for his house in Westhampton and asked where our messenger was. We must assume it was robbery although I can't understand it. Naturally we have a list of the bonds in my office.”

“A guy carrying bonds is robbed and killed,” Anderson said. “What's there hard to understand about that?”

“But the bonds are not negotiable, they're worthless except to the owner,” Stewart said, waving his manicured hands.

“That's right,” this Al Wales put in, “all we carry is mortgages and nonnegotiable general bonds. Of course, assuming this was a robbery and that's what it looks like, whoever killed Ed might have thought he was carrying something worth taking. Must have been an amateur punk.”

“We didn't find any bonds on him,” Anderson said. “If they were worthless why did you need an armed messenger?” Stewart's eyebrows shot up. “Armed?” Anderson nodded. “He was packing a gun, never had a chance to use it. You didn't know he carried a gun?”

“I most certainly did not. The firm never asked or authorized any employee to carry a gun.” Stewart turned to Wales. “Did you know about the gun?”

Wales said, “The gun had nothing to do with the job. Most retired cops get a permit to carry a gun. You know that, Anderson. You say he never used his gun. Did it look like Ed was in a fight?”

“No. No bruises. One shot through the heart did it.” Anderson turned to Stewart. “Bond messengers have to use the service entrance?”

“No.”

“Owens was killed in an alley leading to the service door.”

“That don't make sense,” Wales said. “He never used any back doors. And Ed was a quick guy with his hands and his gun—when he was younger. Hard to believe he'd be taken without some kind of battle.”

“Well, there wasn't any, far as we can tell. Either Owens handed over the bonds like he was told, and was shot; or he was shot before he knew what it was all about. And all over bonds that weren't worth a thin dime—a real dumb killing,” Anderson said.

“Does sound like one of those jerky ones,” Wales added.

“But his pockets were torn,” I chimed in. “Means he was shot first and then searched fast. He never had a chance.”

Anderson told Stewart, “Give me a list of the bonds, I'd get them on the wire. And I need a phone, boys at the local precinct will want to talk to this McCarthy right now.”

“You can use the phone in my office,” Stewart said. “I'll have one of the girls type up several copies of the bonds' serial numbers, and all the other information at once.”

Anderson nodded and stood, pulling his pants out of his rear like a slob. At the door he told me, “Stay here and write up Wales.”

When they left Wales said, “We might as well sit down. You ever a fighter, young fellow?”

“Amateur. What makes you ask—see me in the ring?”

He shook his head and you wondered how his long scrawny neck bore the strain. “I haven't seen a fight since Louis was knocking them over. You got the right hands for a pug, wide, deep-set knuckles.”

“I did okay. Wanted to turn pro but my folks raised too much fuss. So I joined the force.”

Wales smiled, he had neat even teeth—and all of them store choppers. “Nothing in the world like being a young cop, the boss of your beat. Or maybe it's just there's nothing like being young. Get old and all you can do is read about things. I read and read. Why my eyes look shot. I don't need glasses, though and... damn, who's going to tell Jane about this?”

“Jane?”

“Ed's wife. They got a daughter working someplace in South America for an oil company. Had a boy who died when he was a kid. This will be rough on Jane.”

I got out my notebook, wrote down Wales' full name, home address, last precinct squad he worked on, the Owens' home address. “How long you been working here, Mr. Wales?”

“About three years. Ed needed the dough but I'm all alone. I work to keep busy. My wife passed away back in '49, right after I retired from the force. When Ed started working here he got me on. Five hours a day, a way of passing time.”

“You two the only messengers?”

“Yeah. I come on at nine and Ed came in at noon.”

“If the bonds you carried were worthless why—”

“They're not worthless but nonnegotiable: there's a big difference.”

“Sure. But if they weren't worth anything except to the owners, why did the firm only hire former policemen?”

“Because they know we're bondable, in good physical condition for our age, and only a fellow with a pension can fool around with a part-time job.”

“You in the office when Mr. Owens was killed?”

“No. I left at eleven-thirty to take some bonds to a customer up on the Grand Concourse. He wasn't in so I came back here—about twenty minutes before the police arrived. You say Ed's pockets were torn. Was his receipt book missing too?”

“All we found was a torn wallet, identification cards, some change, pack of butts, mints and a lighter. Receipt book mean anything?”

Wales shook his head again. “No. It's of no value. Shows some jerky kid must have done the job.”

I wiggled on the chair. “I don't think so. A jerk doesn't follow a messenger all the way uptown. And if it was a jerky lad in an on-the-spot stick-up, he would have taken the change, Owens' gun.”

“Maybe. And maybe when the punk saw the gun he figured Owens for a cop and got scared. Could be a nut. And if Ed wasn't tailed why would anybody rob him? Ed never dressed like money from home.”

“Did he carry much cash?”

“Ed? Lucky to have a buck floating around his pockets. Every extra dime went on the ponies. Not that Ed was a real gambler, but a few bucks here and there every week. On that little pension they give us you don't raise any hell.”

“Did Mr. Owens have any enemies? Perhaps some character he once collared?”

Wales shrugged, a tired motion. “No. At least none I ever heard of. We were just run-of-the-mill detectives, the usual arrests. We had one big collar, got a killer in a gang war. But that was a long time ago and he went up in smoke in the chair. Of course Ed stayed on the force a couple of years after I left. He was a little younger. But he liked to talk, and he would have told me if he thought somebody was after him.”

“We'll have to dig into his arrest record.”

Wales smiled sadly. “Dig, dig, clear every little detail, that's a detective's life. A crime is like an iceberg, one-tenth showing and nine-tenths hidden.”

“Iceberg—neat way of putting it. That's what they drilled into me at the academy: whenever you're stuck start digging into the case all over again.”

Wales nodded as he licked his thin lips. “They're right, only most times you never get the time. New cases always coming...”

Anderson came in. “Got everything, kid?”

I closed my notebook. “Think so.”

“Come on, Lampkin wants us back at the precinct house. Nothing more for us here.”

As I stood up Wales climbed to his feet. “Mind if I ride up with you? I'd like to look around. Me and Ed—I mean, well, wouldn't hurt none.”

“Come along. The captain probably wants to talk to you anyway.”

Wales left the office and met us at the elevator, wearing an old battered plastic rain hat. I brushed against him as we stepped into the elevator; he wasn't carrying a gun. Wales said, “That's okay, I'm clean.” There was a fresh odor of whisky on his words.

Wales sat in the back seat and I got the siren going and shot up Broadway to Chambers Street, then wheeled over to the highway. Anderson said, “You ain't got your leather jacket on and this ain't no motorcycle, so quit making like a speed king, kid.”

“Close your eyes if you can't take it,” I said, doing more cutting through the uptown traffic than necessary.

Anderson turned and asked Wales, “Ever see anything like this before? Makes a good collar while a rookie and he's an acting detective third grade before he can get corns on his feet. Me, I was a harness bull for over seven years.”

“Probably make a good dick, it's the last thing he looks like.”

Anderson laughed, a real jackass chuckle. “Got something there. He looks like he got his badge with a cereal box top. And not looking like a cop is one way of stopping a slug or a handful of knuckles. Me, I'm glad I look like what I am.”

Wales said, “Force is changing, lots of college boys on it now. I like the way this young fellow speaks, calls people mister. He'll be real good once he stops talking so much.”

“What's that mean?” I asked, glancing at him in the windshield mirror.

Wales gave me his tired smile before he said, “You got to learn to ask questions, not hand out information. Doesn't make any difference in this case, but why tell Mr. Stewart and myself Ed's pockets were torn? Sometimes a little thing like that can trap a man.”

“Damn right,” Anderson said, “you have to—”

“You shoot your gums off too,” Wales said dryly. “Right off the bat you told me the bonds were missing and that Ed was packing a gun.”

“That was part of my questioning you. This is just an ordinary stick-up, let's not make a big case out of it.”

“It isn't ordinary, an ex-cop was killed,” I said. The car on my left got panicky at the sound of the siren and stupidly tried to cut to the right. I made the brakes scream, shaking us all up, then raced around the car as Anderson cursed, swallowed his gum, and finally yelled, “Slow down! And that's a goddamn order!”

At the station house Lieutenant Reed sent Hayes and me out to finish interviewing the people in the surrounding apartment houses. They were all large houses, seventy to a hundred apartments. They'd borrowed some dicks from another squad and had over a dozen men working the houses. It was dull routine and we ended up with nothing; not a soul had seen or heard a thing. There were the usual crackpots who “thought I heard several shots around four o'clock.... Oh, he was shot at two...?”

By nine I was punchy and glad when Reed called us in. By the time I finished my paper work and had a bite with Hayes it was after ten. As I left the station house I saw Al Wales sitting in the muster room, his back against the crummy dirty green-colored wall. He sure had a bulge in his pocket now— a pint. His bleary eyes were open, staring at nothing. As I waved at him he mumbled, “Find the bottom of the iceberg yet?” He spoke like a man full of dull pain.

I turned over in bed, kicked the sheet up from my feet. My toes touched Mary's ankle. I stroked it with my big toe and she broke her heavy breathing with something that sounded like a whimper.

Everybody so certain it was a dumb hold-up, and those are the hardest to solve, dead ends where nothing makes sense. Two retired cops. Never know what Owens was like but Wales was okay, never once called me a runt or a kid. I was in bed, so was Danny Hayes and probably Anderson and the rest of the squad. Reed might still be up, waiting to hear what his stoolies knew, maybe had a man going over the nightly round-up of “undesirables.” We were all safe in bed, doing nothing, while one of us was on a slab in the morgue.

I touched Mary's ankle again. Maybe she was right. A cop, an ex-cop, was dead and nobody really gave a damn. Just another stick-up victim, as if he hadn't spent most of his life trying to protect people. Hell, who was an ex-cop to get any more consideration than an ordinary murdered citizen?

I thought he should get a damn sight more consideration.

I suddenly smiled at the darkness. Dave Wintino, the boy Dick Tracy! I didn't have a thing to go on but a hunch—like the feeling I had about the lead pipe in my big pinch. Maybe it was dumb to play a hunch... but somehow I was sure Ed Owens hadn't been killed in a stick-up.

Wednesday Morning

At exactly 6 a.m. I awoke as though an alarm had gone off. I can always do that. It was light outside already and looked like a good warm day. I slipped out of bed easily and Mary didn't move. She was sleeping half outside the blanket, curled like a cat, and for a moment I admired the full curve of her hips in the ski pajamas. Then I shut the bathroom door and ran the electric razor over my face and took a shower, thinking how odd it is with women. I mean Mary actually had a straight up-and-down figure, even a bit on the skinny side, yet in certain positions— like that one on the bed or sometimes when she sits with one leg under and I get a flash of her thigh— what curves. I sometimes wonder where they come from.

And maybe Ed Owens' wife had curves he liked to watch too.

I was getting fresh shorts out of the desk drawer when Mary sat up, coming wide-awake fast as she always does, and said, “Are you getting up or going to bed? What time is it?”

“Sixteen after six. Have coffee with me?”

Mary yawned and stretched her arms over her head, her breasts pushing out. “Guess so. Sixteen after six, what a time to get up.”

“My last day on this tour. Starting Saturday I—”

“I know, I know, you start working at midnight. Lovely!”

“Let's not begin the day arguing. Go back to sleep and leave me alone.”

“Sleep— some chance!”

“If we had a bigger apartment instead of a correct address, I could get up without waking you.”

She sat up in bed, got a cigarette working. “Dave, why must you always make excuses for the job? If you were going to work at 9 a.m. like most husbands, we... oh, nuts, I feel too beat to argue.”

She puffed on her cigarette slowly, watching me as I got out my tropical gray suit, a white shirt, cuff links, a heavy T-shirt, and a striped pink and hard gray tie. I went into the can and rubbed some hair conditioner on my noggin, then gave it a stiff workout with a brush and comb, getting it just right—the pomp in front raised and with a good curl. Understand, I don't see any sense in looking sloppy. I put on my shorts and socks and shoes, was giving the shoes a fast shine with yesterday's shirt when Mary got out of bed. She tossed her butt in the John and jabbed a sharp little finger in my gut. She said, “Davie, I'm queer for those ridges of muscle.”

“I go for your tummy too,” I said, pulling her to me, kissing her. Her lips had a stale tobacco taste.

She rubbed up against me for a moment, said, “Keep this up and you'll be late.”

“Man's expected to be late once in a while,” I said, playing with her soft blonde hair, wishing she didn't use such a bright rinse.

“And let law and order go to hell?” she said, the light sarcasm in her voice teasing me.

“Put the coffee on.” I was like the others, forgetting a cop had been killed.

“'Put the coffee on,' my lover says in a sexy tone.”

“Babes, I have a lot of work to do. Look, you go back to bed and I'll stop someplace for coffee and juice.”

She poked my gut again as she drew away. “I'll make you coffee soon as I wash up.” You know how I am, Once I'm awake.”

I dressed while she was in the kitchenette. She had the radio on to an early morning record jockey and the music was hot. When I sat down for my Java Mary said, “Honest, Dave, you belong on Madison Avenue. You have a flair for wearing clothes. You look the part.”

“I've been on Madison Avenue, had a fixed post there during a strike. Madison Avenue and 114th Street.”

“Oh, stop talking about your awful job. I bet even the Commissioner forgets his work when he's home.”

“I was kidding. Getting warm fast, we'll be able to go to the beach soon.”

“I can picture us. When are you getting your vacation, in November?”

“Stop riding me, you know I'm junior man,” I said, sipping my coffee, thinking that if she didn't have her job we'd have plenty of time for the beach on my fifty-six-hour swing every week.

Mary kept stirring her cup. “Don't know how you can take coffee so hot. Dave, will you get in touch with Uncle Frank? At least be polite enough to see what he wants.”

“Okay. Tomorrow, when I'm off.”

Her face came alive. “Really?”

“As you said, at least I can be polite.” Frank wasn't a bad guy, good for laughs—long as he remained Uncle Frank and not bossman Frank.

“That's a promise now,” Mary said, coming around the tiny table and hugging me as she sat on my lap. I wanted to tell her she was pretty but not that pretty. Instead I held her against me with my left hand, finished the coffee with my right.

She suddenly said, “Ouch!” and sat up, rubbing her shoulder. “That damn holster is going to leave me black and blue yet.”

I damn near spilled the coffee on my pants. I tickled her bottom, making her jump to her feet With a gasp. I stood up and kissed her, said, “See you for supper—I hope,” and picked up my wrinkled suit from the floor on the way out.

Waiting for the elevator I checked my pockets again: badge, wallet, keys, pens, notebook, extra shells, touched the gun in its shoulder holster, and ran a hand over my hair. I left the suit at the corner tailor shop, bought the morning papers, and dropped into the first coffee pot I hit to have a slow cup of the junk and see what they had to say about Ed Owens. Not that it mattered what the papers said.

There was a picture of Owens in the alleyway and just a caption in the News. The Times surprised me by giving him a whole column. After a sentence—saying he'd been shot in a hold-up while carrying nonnegotiable bonds, they went on to say Owens and Wales had solved the murder of a Boots Brenner back in 1930. I never heard of the joker but the paper claimed he was well on his way to becoming the Al Capone of New York City when he was found in a vacant Brooklyn lot full of lead. “Within 24 hours, through brilliant detective work” Owens and Wales arrested a small-time bootlegger named Sal Kahn who was running a still near the lot where Brenner's body was found. Kahn had a record of several arrests for making and selling booze. He admitted killing Boots when the gangster tried to muscle in on an electric still Kahn was running. The still was an “amazing work of scientific ingenuity” and although Kahn pleaded self-defense, he died in the chair without revealing the name of his partner, who had built the still. Both Wales and Owens had been cited by the mayor for their fast work.

I gathered the politicians had been busting a “crime wave” and had used the death of a strong-arm goon to crow about how safe the city was.

I finished breakfast with a piece of candy, took the subway over to the precinct house, paying my fare. Seems dumb to me to advertise every day that you're a detective. I walked into the detective room a few minutes before eight. Danny Hayes was already there, breezing with a sleepy-looking fat slob named Ace who has a terrific memory for faces. I picked up the daily report sheet, read the arrests. There wasn't anything of interest except they had collared a clown named Hanson up on Washington Heights trying to pass a stiff check in a drugstore. Seems Hanson had bounced a check in the same store a few months ago. Most crooks are dumb as hell.

I said hello to Danny as I put the report sheet down. “How about this paperhanger Hanson, think he could be the phony doctor dropping rubber around here? He was working a drugstore.”

“We're going to check,” Danny said.

Ace waved a heavy hand at me and yawned. “Now I can go home and sleep in peace, the younger generation has things in hand. Will you look at that outfit. Where'd you spend the night, Dave, between the covers of Esquire?”

“Momma, who's the funny mans in the baggy suit and soiled sport shirt?” I said, thumbing my nose at him. “Gowan home, brawn, and let the brains take over. What's on the Owen's deal?”

“You still got seven minutes before your tour starts,” Ace said. “What you bucking for, Reed's job? Hate to have you in charge of the squad—you'd be a ballbreaker.”

“Cut the wisecracks, Ace. An ex-cop's been killed.”

Ace stood up, like a tent coming erect, and favored me with a belch. “Got special news for you, kid. The cemeteries are full of ex-cops. When our number comes up we go with the wagon too. There's nothing new on Owens, not a lead-one of those great big blank walls.”

“Lab come up with anything?”

“Nothing except he was killed with a .38.” Ace stretched and for some reason I suddenly thought of Mary.

“Ace, you married?”

He turned to stare at me, heavy arms still in mid-air, a dopey look on his fat face. “Sure I'm married. Now what the devil brought that brainstorm on? I was married before your pop told your ma, 'Let's try and make a David.' Why do you ask?”

“Nothing. Just... uh... thinking about cops' wives. Like this Owens' wife. What did she have to say?” I wanted to ask how Ace's wife felt about his being a cop—maybe they all complained like Mary—but he'd think I was flipping if I ever asked. I couldn't ask Danny: he was separated from his schoolteacher wife, but not because of the force—she caught him with another woman.

“I think Homicide talked to Mrs. Owens,” Ace said. “Gather they didn't have a chance to talk to her much, the shock had her on the ropes.”

“Anybody else questioned?”

Ace gave me a fat grin. “Being as I'm just a detective on the night tour Captain Lampkin hasn't time to go over all the details with me. Of course if I was young and with waves in my hair and on the day shift, why I could sit down and tell him how to work.”

“Everybody treats this as a big yak. We ought to spend a lot of time with Mrs. Owens, and with Wales, and dig into their past arrests. Plenty of work to do,” I said.

“There certainly is, Wintino, and you can start by getting me a buttered roll and a container of coffee—light. Too tired to eat this morning,” a voice said behind me.

I turned and Lieutenant Reed was standing in the doorway kind of stooped as though afraid of bumping his bald dome. He had tired circles under his eyes and needed a shave. I said, “Certainly, Lieutenant,” and took the two bits he held out.

Downstairs they were turning out the platoon and I waited a moment till that was over, then ran across the street to the delicatessen. I didn't like the idea of Reed using me as coffee boy but then he had the other members of the squad hustling Java for him too, sometimes. And it was about time he learned coffee and a buttered roll was thirty-two cents.

I had to wait till a fresh pot was brewed and I returned to find a tall, well-set-up guy, about thirty-seven, sitting with Reed. The guy had a brown gabardine suit that had to be custom-made the way it fitted like a grape skin. He looked real sharp in a tab collar and a narrow dark brown tie. His hair was combed slick, he had one of these large rugged faces, and his gut was so flat he was probably wearing a girdle.

As I put the bag on the desk Reed said, “This is Detective Austin from Homicide. You've met Detective Hayes; this is his partner, Detective Wintino. They, were the first of my squad to reach Owens.”

Austin nodded at me and said, “You must have shrunk since you took the physical.- Never figured you for five eight.” He had a booming clear voice that went with his beefy good looks.

“I was wearing elevator shoes at the time. They send you up here to check my height?” I asked.

Austin winked at Reed. “Rough little stud.”

“Tries to be, anyway. And at times he is. Captain Lampkin wants you to have a talk with Mrs. Owens. That's about the only angle we haven't covered thoroughly. I suggest you go over to her flat now. I'm sending Hayes downtown to the line-up to look over a rubber check artist we're interested in, so take Wintino with you.” Reed glanced at the wall clock. “Unless she gives you something, be back here around ten.”

“Anything you say, Lieutenant. Frankly I don't believe it will get us anywheres, but it will make the old lady feel we're on the job,” Austin said, getting to his feet.

He wasn't so big, it was just the sharp fit of the suit and his big face. He picked up a pork pie hat I would have liked —if I ever wore a hat. I whispered to Danny, “You're lucky, I'm stuck with glamour boy. Dresses like this is the FBI.”

Danny smiled, showing his stubby teeth. “Glamour boy? Didn't you look in the mirror this morning? I ought to be back from downtown by noon, Dave. Maybe we'll have Chinese food for lunch.”

I got a car downstairs and drove Austin up to the Bronx. He said, “Getting warm. I don't like heat unless I'm in a bathing suit. Reed say that colored boy was your partner?”

“Yeah.”

“That's rough. I always say they should—”

“What's rough about it?” I cut in, knowing what was coming. “Danny's a hard worker and smart—that's all I ask of a partner. Have you seen Owens' old partner, Al Wales?”

“No, but I hear he looks like a creep.”

“Seems they made an important collar back in 1930. Got a guy who killed a hot-shot goon named Boots Brenner. Ever hear of Brenner?”

Austin nodded as he took out a pack of butts, offered me one. “I remember reading about Brenner someplace. Punk who wanted to be a second Vince Coll, tougher than tough stuff. Want a smoke?”

“I don't smoke. Thanks.”

“You must have made a fortune when you were in the army. Or weren't you old enough to be in during the war?”

“I did my time after the war. What about this Boots Brenner?” I asked, a little steamed.

“Like I told you, a punk. Started to cut into the big pie but got himself killed before the big boys took much notice of him. What's he got to do with Owens?”

“I don't know, yet. I'd like to have another talk with Wales. Of course the guy they rapped for killing Boots sat in the chair, but I have a feeling we ought to dig deeper into their arrest record,” I said turning into 145th Street and stopping for a light. I didn't have the siren on.

I wouldn't have minded so much if Austin had laughed. He chuckled. “Don't go off the deep end, shortie. This wasn't any revenge killing, it was a stick-up and a lousy one. If anybody had merely wanted to plug Owens they wouldn't have bothered walking him into an alley on West End Avenue.”

“If it was a stick-up Owens would have put up a fight and he didn't.”

“How do we know he would have?”

“Wales says Owens was handy with a gun and his hands.”

Austin chuckled again. “Maybe years ago, but yesterday Owens was an old man. And no matter how tough a guy is, a jittery stick-up character may squeeze the trigger first and talk later. Tell you the truth, we're only going through the motions. Know when this will be solved? In a year or two or three we'll pick up some junkie or a loony on another charge, probably another killing, and in the course of grilling him he'll confess to killing Owens. Cases like this follow a pattern.”

“No. I have a... a... feeling this was more than a hold-up. The worthless bonds, the torn pockets, for example, make me uneasy.”

Austin let me have the chuckle again. “You sound like a song, 'that old feeling.' Better gag than anything I've seen on TV this week. Keep your feelings for your girl friends.”

I shut up. When we reached Third Avenue I turned downtown and then east again and we were in a neighborhood of run-down wooden private houses, most of them with tiny lawns bordered by a struggling bush or even flowers. It was like a couple of blocks of some hick town set down in New York City. I pulled up before one that had a few busted chairs on the porch, chairs that had been left out all winter, a lot of winters. It was a squat two-family house, badly in need of paint and new shingles. I said, “This is it.”

“Some dump.” Austin took out his notebook, checking the address. “Imagine a guy ever wanting to buy one of these joints? Let's get it over with.”

The Owens apartment was the bottom one and the woman who opened the door was dressed in a clean worn house dress that looked too heavy for May. She was plump, lots of veins in her fat legs, and her moon-shaped flabby face was topped with dirty gray hair braided around her head. Her eyes were red and the skin around them looked raw. Austin took off his hat as he asked, “Mrs. Edward Owens?”

“Yes, but if you're reporters I—”

“I'm Detective Austin and this is Detective... Winston.”

“Wintino, David Wintino, Mrs. Owens,” I told her.

“I know you've been under a terrific strain, an ordeal, but we're on police business and would appreciate it if you would answer a few questions.” The sugar in Austin's voice sounded phony as hell.

“I understand. I'm sorry I wasn't able to talk much last night. Last night... God, I still can't believe it. Step inside, please,” Mrs. Owens said, holding the door open. Her hands were short and covered with spots like large freckles.

We walked into an old-fashioned neat living room: a clumsy big radio set with a million dials that probably still ran on A and B batteries, an old seven-inch TV set in a large cabinet, an upright piano, two leather chairs, a couple of plain ones, and a couch that looked hard. Atop the piano there was a picture of a plain-faced girl with fat cheeks, about eighteen, and a cracked picture in a gold frame of a towheaded boy of about twelve.

Mrs. Owens pointed to the leather chairs and we put it down and she sat on the couch and said, “I suppose you want to know about Ed.” She spoke in a faraway voice.

“As a police officer's wife, you know we need all the information we can get to help us track down your husband's killer,” Austin said like an idiot, as though he was selling something. “Do you live here alone, Mrs. Owens?”

“I do now. The Sarasohns who live upstairs have been most helpful, they did all they could for me last night. I even slept up there. My daughter Susan is down in Venezuela. She's wired she's flying up for the funeral. Our son, Edward Junior,” she nodded toward the picture on the piano, “was taken from us many years ago. Now Ed... I just can't seem to think straight or believe it. He is dead, isn't he?”

“Yes, he is. I understand what you're going through and I'll try to make the questioning brief as possible. Now...”

“That's all right. I can talk about things. Only at times... Well, when Junior died it was bad but Ed was at my side. Now without Ed I feel lost, alone... kind of empty.” She looked around the room helplessly. “I was in the kitchen when you rang. You know his garden tools are still beside the tub where he left them yesterday morning. Said he might use them in the evening before it got too dark.”

“What gardening tools?” Austin asked.

“A spade and a rake. We have a nice little back yard and Ed loved to raise flowers and things. It's time for planting. Ed always had a green thumb. That's what he dreamt about, retiring to a place in California where he could really grow things.”

“We all want a house in the country,” Austin said. “Now about—”

“But we've been dreaming about it for so many years,” Mrs. Owens said, as if talking to herself. “From way back when Ed was first appointed. Then the children came. We put money aside for their education but that went for Junior's burial, although Susan finished business school. But children, payments on the house, not much left out of a policeman's salary. Not that I complained but... I'm sorry, all this is no concern of yours. Ed always joked about my chattering too much. What is it you want to ask me?”

“A few routine questions. We're sure Mr. Owens was the victim of a nervous stick-up punk but we're not overlooking any other possibilities, of course. £)id your husband have any enemies? Did he seem worried?”

“You wouldn't ask that if you'd known my Ed. He was always an easygoing man. His only troubles were financial and he never let them get him down. If anything he was in better spirits than ever lately. A few weeks ago he came home and started dancing me around. 'Janie,' he says, 'we have that California cottage, be raising oranges soon.' He's—was—in a gay mood all the time lately.”

“About this cottage, do you think he came into some money?” I asked, although as junior man it was up to Austin to do the questioning.

“No. You see Ed had one vice, he loved to play the horses. I didn't mind, a person has to relax some way, I say. Whenever he had a spare dollar or two he would make a bet. Naturally most times he lost but whenever he won, maybe five or ten dollars, he was like a small boy who thinks he has the world by the tail. I imagine Ed must have made himself a few dollars and was talking big. That's all it was.”

Austin asked, “Is it possible Mr. Owens was playing the races big and might have gotten in over his head with a gambling mob?”

The old lady stroked her coiled braids. “I hope I haven't given you a bad impression of Ed. He wasn't a gambler. He merely played a few dollars now and then like I play bingo or even put a few pennies on a number if I have a dream.”

“Did he drink much?”

“No, sir, beer was all my Ed touched and not much of that. I never saw Edward Owens drunk except once, when sickness took our Junior. Now Al—Mr. Wales—he began to drink something frightful and Ed was always on him to stop it. That was after his dear wife died of cancer back in nineteen and forty-nine. Al's a good man but a strange one. He never seemed too emotional about things but he went to pieces when Dora passed on. That was one reason why Ed got him to work at the brokerage house. Did Al a world of good, although he still goes off on toots at times. Poor Al, he talked to me on the phone last night and actually cried.”

“About this brokerage house, did your husband like the job? Was he happy there?”

Mrs. Owens tried to smile. “He liked the job very much. I think Ed liked most the idea that he didn't have to work. We needed the few dollars he made but we could have gotten along without them, too. It was more like it gave him something to do. He was always nosy and liked going to these big offices, the rich houses.”

“Why did he carry a gun?”

She looked puzzled. “My goodness, Ed's worn a gun every day for as long as I can remember. Be like asking why he wore pants.”

“Did your husband usually drop into any bars around here, for a beer, and perhaps talk about the bonds he was carrying, some of the rich homes he'd been to?”

She shook her head. “No, sir, not Ed. Did his beer drinking right here while watching the TV. In the mornings he'd fool around in his garden. When he came home from work we'd have supper and watch TV, maybe play rummy, or he'd get out his books and booklets and try to figure a winner in the races. He was strictly a homebody, always was.”

“Do you know where he placed his bets?”

“No. Some cigar stand downtown. I imagine Al Wales could tell you, although Al never gambled.”

“Now, Mrs. Owens, think carefully: was there anybody who had any reason, no matter how slight, to be angry at your husband? Or was Mr. Owens mad at anybody?”

“Not a soul.”

Austin stood up. “I think that's all. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Owens. And don't worry, we'll get the rats who did this.”

“Yes, I suppose you will. But that won't bring Ed back, to me. Everyplace I look I see something of his, his tools, his clothes, his beers in the icebox,” Mrs. Owens said, getting up. “Would you like to see his garden?”

“Best we run....”

“I'd like very much to see it,” I said. Austin looked at me as if to say, “Shut up.”

We followed her down a short hallway with two bedrooms opening off it, through a large clean kitchen, out to a back yard that was about twenty feet wide and maybe thirty feet long. Except for something growing under two old windows, it was just a lot of dirt to me.

She pointed to the windows which were about six inches off the ground and walled in with loose bricks. “This is Ed's hothouse. I think he has some tulip bulbs growing there now. By the end of July he'll have this whole yard full of pansies and other flowers, maybe a few rows of carrots and some tomato vines. Once, he even raised some good corn here. One summer he spelled out 'Owens' across the yard in red, white and blue flowers. They had a picture of that in the Bronx Home News.”

There was a moment of silence till I asked, “Mrs. Owens, did you like being a policeman's wife? The changing hours, little pay, the danger?”

She looked astonished. “Why, of course I liked it, young man, it was my husband's job. Sometimes I worried a little about Ed but he could take care of himself. As for the pay, it wasn't much, but then what job pays enough? Best thing was it being steady, no lay-off. My father was a house painter and always working crazy hours. And near every winter there would be months when he didn't work and we'd be worried sick. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering,” I said stupidly.

“Nice seeing your garden, Mrs. Owens, but we have to leave,” Austin said.

“I don't want to keep you. The force has certainly changed, you two all dressed so smartly. And this young man who looks like he's a college student. Yes indeed, I liked Ed being a policeman, I felt he was helping people. Of course sometimes there were dirty jobs and long hours, but like I say, no job is all good. Wouldn't be a job if it was.”

When we were in the car Austin asked, “What are you conducting, a lonely hearts column for cops' wives? 'Mrs. Owens, did you like being a policeman's wife? For crying out loud, Winstein, you're a prize dummy.”

“The name is Wintino. What's so dumb about it? Everybody keeps yapping Owens was killed by a goon, a stick-up punk. Maybe. But he was in an alley and never went for his gun so it might have been with somebody he was friendly, like another woman.”

Austin shook his head. “Naw, you and me might be lovers, but not the Owens type. How long you been on the force?”

“Less than a year. So what?”

“You'll learn we haven't time to investigate every cockeyed angle to a case. Most times the common-sense angles are the right ones. Owens was held up, and by an amateur, that's the common-sense angle. Look, by, this afternoon I'll be off the case and it will be left in the open files. They'll let it stand till we get a break. You want to speculate, a guy in a flying saucer might have dropped down and knocked off Owens?” “Are you satisfied with the case?”

He gave me his superior smile. “Satisfied? This isn't a restaurant, it's a job. Not up to me to be satisfied or not satisfied. We do the best we can and that's the way the ball bounces.”

“Okay, so if I'm not satisfied I keep digging till I come up with something that fits.”

“Make sense, Winston. You can keep digging for the next three years. We haven't the time. In a few hours you'll be looking into a forced entry case, a mugging, something like that. And I'll be working on another killing.”

“Maybe. But I'm going to keep sifting this one. When an ex-cop is killed it makes you think.” “It does? About what?”

“About myself. I'll be retired like Owens was someday and I don't want to end up in an alley.” Nor in a run-down flat with an ancient radio and the same furniture I had when I first moved in, I thought. Although Mom and Pa, their place is like the Owens', the inside of a poor museum. Wonder what a guy has to do to make a good buck in this crazy world without being a bastard. “You married?” I asked Austin. “You starting on me? Sure I'm married.”

“Wife like your job?”

“I never asked her. What's with you, Watson?” “Nothing. My wife isn't hot about my job.” He chuckled. “Wives need a slap across the teeth now and then. That's my best advice.”

I didn't bother telling this dope where to stick his advice. As we waited for a light on the Concourse I considered shooting up to Ogden Avenue for a second, seeing Mom. Might have done it if I was alone or with Danny. Been near a month since I'd been up there. I didn't like to go up Without Mary because that was an admission on my part she wasn't comfortable around my folks.

There was another reason too. The old neighborhood gave me a funny feeling. Guys I'd been pals with since we were old enough to play hide and seek, guys who couldn't wait to slap me on the back when I won a fight, now treating me with that cold politeness most citizens reserve for cops. The cagey distrustful look, as if they expected me to belt them over the head with a night stick any minute. Still, I'd better go up and put away one of Mom's big Friday night meals before the summer heat hit us.

We passed the Yankee Stadium and Austin talked baseball all the way back to the precinct. I didn't listen. I kept seeing Owens' place, old and falling apart. As I parked the car I stared at the station house for a moment, a short ugly building that must be a hundred years old. A firetrap that was like ice in the winter, full of mice and bugs. Everything about the job seemed old, stagnant, so—

“Asleep at the wheel, wonder boy?”

Austin was standing outside the car, smiling at me—if you can call a sneer a smile. I got out, followed him up the worn steps, nodded at the desk lieutenant, the sergeant at the switchboard listening to the calls from the post cops and the guys driving on radio motor patrol.

A former cop was shot dead and everything went as usual in this old building.

Austin went to the John and I went up to the detective room. A quiet joker named Larson was at the desk, doing some paper work. He was a giant, a real mister six by six, one of these strong silent guys who keep to themselves. He told me, “Dave, your wife called. Wants you to ring her at her office. Called about ten minutes ago.”

I said thanks and dialed the agency. Mary said in the low voice you have to use in a crowded office, trying not to make it sound like a whisper, “Dave? Don Tills is having two tables of bridge tonight and he's asked us over. I told you about him, one of our top copywriters, the golden boy of the office. Be a great help to me if I get in with his crowd.”

“I don't mind some bridge. That all you wanted to tell me?”

“Yes and be sure to be home on time. They're counting on us to be there at nine sharp.”

“You know I always come home when I'm done here.”

“Just be 'done' by five so we can eat together like normal married people and get dressed and go out together, for a change.”

“Okay, we'll be normal married people. See you for supper, Babes.”

As I hung up I saw Larson grinning at me as he bent over his desk. I said, “Tough for a wife to take our hours. Your wife complain much?”

“Sometimes. She's a nurse and her shifts are almost as bad as ours. But then when we do get some time together we enjoy it more.”

“Anything new?”

He shook his big head. “Quiet. The lieutenant is down in Captain Lampkin's office. Stolen auto reported over on the avenue. I just came back from a busted store window on Adams Street. That's about all. Get anything from Mrs. Owens?”

“Nope.” It was seven after ten; Mom wouldn't be out shopping yet—not till the crappy soap operas she listened to every morning were over. I dialed her and we asked each other how we were and how was Pop and how was Mary? Could they come to our place this Sunday? Mom said after all Mary worked hard all week, no sense in her cooking for them. Could we come up this Friday? I said maybe but I was pretty busy. I'd check with Mary and call back. Mom said she would have fresh gefullte fish, chopped chicken liver, and her best lasagna. I told her she was making my mouth drool at the mention of her lasagna and gefullte fish but I'd have to see how I was fixed for time, check with Mary. Give Pop my love and I'll call Friday morning before ten.

I hung up and Austin was standing at the table, the big grin on his big puss. He asked, “What's your name again?” “You got a hell of a memory for a detective. Get it straight for once. Dave Wintino.”

“Thought I heard right, gefullte and lasagna! No wonder you're a jerk—a Jewboy and a Wop, what a—”

Without getting up I turned on the chair and planted a left hook next to the middle button of his sharp suit. His grin became a frantic O as he gulped for air, clutched his gut and bent double, then sat down hard on the floor.

I glanced at Larson who was still busy with his paper work, but from the way his big feet were set he was ready to jump up. I asked Austin, “Want to sample more of my mother's cooking?”

His face was still screwed up with pain and he was fighting for air as he gasped, “You... little... bastard... Sunday-punched... me.”

“Maybe I did, the way you caught me unawares with your crack about my folks.”

“I'll have your badge for this!” he mumbled, sweat starting down his agonized face. '

“Think you can get it? I got pull backing me too. Or maybe you mean... Look, lardass, you have a few inches in height on me and at least thirty pounds but I don't think you're big enough to take my badge. But let's step outside and try it. I'd like to spread your nose and—”

Larson was at my side, a heavy strong arm lightly on my shoulder. He said softly, “Cut it, Dave. This is a police station, not a street corner or a gym.”

He was in a middle spot, not knowing how much pull Austin might have down at Centre Street and if he took sides he could find himself pounding a country beat, a harness cop again.

“I was merely showing this stuffed clown how strong my mother's lasagna made me and—”

“Go over and sit at my desk, Dave,” Larson said. “Don't give me a hard time.”

“But... sure, Larson.” I walked over and sat on the corner of his desk, ran my hand over my hair: it wasn't mussed. He helped Austin to his feet. He still couldn't stand straight, an unexpected belt in the gut is rugged. Austin said, “I'll beat the living slop out of—”

“You two want to fight, go outside and on your own time. Sit down and relax.” Larson actually lifted Austin off the floor and carried him to the nearest chair. Then he came back to his desk, told me, “Get your can off my desk, Dave. You relax too.”

I wasn't sore at Larson and anyway I'd have to be stupid-mad to ever tangle with him—if you didn't take him out with the first punch those arms could crush you like big snakes. As I stood up Lieutenant Reed came in, looked at Austin holding his middle, his face pale. Then he glared at me and asked, “What the hell's going on here?”

I realized he was talking over me, to Larson. I said quickly, “I had to explain my name to Detective Austin, sort of straighten him out. He didn't like the way it sounded.”

“Wintino, this isn't any goddamn boys club, this is an overworked office. But seems you don't have enough work, you have time to showboat.”

“The Owens file is on my desk. Read through it, see if you can use your hands for something constructive, like giving me an intelligent summary of the reports, before you go out to lunch.”

There wasn't any point in arguing with Reed. I said, “Yes, Lieutenant,” went into his office and took the file into a drab-looking room down the hall where we sometimes questioned suspects. I blew dust off the table and chair, sat down.

At lunch I'd have to call Mary's uncle, have him get in touch with his big-shot politician friend, protect me in case there was a beef and Austin really had influence. If they ever stuck me back in uniform there'd be no living with Mary.

I took off my coat and went to work on the file. Most of it was the reports of the various precinct men who'd worked on the case, all the people they'd interviewed, the few leads they'd run down—everything negative. There was a copy of Owens' arrest record, almost all of the collars made with Wales. They had been hard workers, over sixteen hundred cases. I went through the list fast, checking off those arrests where they'd used force, that would be the sort of stuff to make a joker want revenge. Like Austin must feel now.

Back in '37 they had “subdued” a man named Dundus who was terrorizing a bar with a butcher knife. They must have worked the guy over good: Wales had received minor cuts and Owens had busted Dundus' nose with a sap. Dundus had been sent to Bellevue for observation and then to an institution. That was back in '37. He could have spent ten or fifteen years in a padded cell, then been released. I wondered where he was now.

There was a detailed report on the arrest of Sal Kahn for the shooting of Boots Brenner. They had roped Sal into confessing, Owens posing as a “witness who positively identified” Sal as the man who had dumped Brenner's body in the lot. The lot was right next to an empty garage they were using for a still so I wondered why all the praise for Wales and Owens— they couldn't help but stumble on the still and the obvious solution.

Sal must have been one of these cool cats. He never gave them the name of his partner, although through stoolies he was known to be working with somebody known by the snappy title of The Bird. There was over a grand in electrical equipment in the “shop” but Sal didn't know a thing about electricity. It was a damn good thing Kahn signed a confession. They never recovered the actual murder gun—Kahn claimed he had tossed it into a garbage can. Kahn died seventeen months later in the chair, still clam-mouthed. He had forty dollars and change on his person when arrested and not a penny was found in his room. He used a court-appointed lawyer claiming he was broke, although as Wales pointed out in one of his reports, “Kahn and his partner must have been selling a lot of alcohol to interest a gangster like Brenner. It must be assumed the missing partner fled with all the money made from the still.”

I jotted down the address of the still, along with that of Kahn's sole relative, his mother, and the data on Dundus.

The rest were all routine arrests: rape, assault, burglary, disorderly conduct, etc. For the few years Owens worked after Wales retired he must have had an inside job—he only had, three collars, including picking up some joker named Frederick X. Rowland III, for smoking in the subway.

As I was finishing the summary, Danny Hayes came in puffing on a new cigarette. I asked, “The guy at the line-up our paperhanger?”

“Nope. This one just blew into town yesterday. Hear you snapped your stack. When you going to grow up, Dave?”

“The bastard called me a Jewboy and a Wop. Am I supposed to be grown up when I take that?”

“I don't know. But sometimes people say things without meaning real harm. Just been raised ignorantly.” He scratched his brown nose. “Hell, I run into that all the time but you can't take on the world.”

“Naw, Austin meant it the way he said it. And when I start taking crap you can pull a headstone over me.”

“I don't make you all the time, Dave. Would you have slugged him if he had used the names and you didn't happen to be Italian and Jewish?”

“Who knows? Look, I have enough trouble taking care of myself. When a guy low-rates me I try to slug him. All set for some Chinese chow?”

“Reed wants you.”

“Going to be a stink about my clipping Austin?”

Hayes shrugged. “Didn't sound like it, but I don't really know. He's sending me out to look at a stolen car, and I think he wants you for another call.”

I got the file together and the few notes I'd made, went through the squad room to Reed's office, told him, “There isn't much here, Lieutenant, and—”