When Jablonski spoke, his voice was unexpectedly free of rancor. “Where you made your big mistake was in letting yourself be seen, Harry. Three dames made you right away. And the bank teller will too.” After a moment he corrected himself. “That was your second big mistake. Your first one was using the gun on an old lady sixty years! Hardboiled Harry Derby—wow!”
“Look—you don’t understand,” said Derby. He began speaking fast and earnestly, heedless of what he was saying, only hoping to convince them by sheer flood of words and emotion. “You guys don’t understand at all. It ain’t like that at all. Honest. I didn’t kill her. You gotta realize that. I didn’t kill her. I know it looks bad—I admit that. But you gotta realize—Sure, I needed a little dough, but this afternoon I ran into this guy and—”
“Where?” said Jablonski.
“Where? Oh…yeah. It was…ah…near the Java Street pier in Brooklyn.”
“What time?”
“What time? Oh, well, I guess it might have been around noon.”
“Might have been, eh? And where were you around three twenty this afternoon?”
Derby stopped talking, and he looked like a man who did not want to talk.
“Where were you shortly before the banks closed?” Derby was silent.
Ryan began to grow annoyed. He wanted to take Derby in; this bearbaiting bothered him. He looked to the half-open door.
That made him say, “Jesus!”
“What’s the matter?” said Jablonski.
“Look.” Ryan reached up on the inside of the door frame. Hanging from a nail by its trigger ring, and exactly in the position where a tall man opening the door might naturally rest his hand was a .38 revolver. The hammer was cocked.
‘There’s the gun,” said Ryan. He could feel something in the pit of his stomach. That was how close it could be. “Right caliber too.”
“Good thing we didn’t give this mother-raper a chance,” said Jablonski feelingly. “Take it down, Neill. Think Farragut can explain that, Derby—especially after it checks with the slug? And how about the C-note? Still want to tell us it wasn’t like that at all?”
Derby said, “I don’t know nothin’ about no C-note. But you could take it. And get a couple more tomorrow besides.”
Jablonski reached over dangerously close to Derby and slapped him across the face as hard as he could. It made an astonishingly loud crack.
Tears jolted to Derby’s eyes. “What’d you say, Harry?” asked Jablonski.
Derby began to curse Jablonski, meaningless obscenity gushing from his mouth like vomit.
Jablonski drew his hand back.
“Don’t mark him,” warned Ryan.
Jablonski took a backward step like a man getting control of himself. “Go call in, Neill. Tell them we got him.
“Wait. Put cuffs on him. I’ll cover you. And give me one of your cheroots before you do.”
Ryan did. But when he had handcuffed Derby and reached the door he could not help pausing a second to look back. It was like picking up the little china chip. This was his first heavy one, and he and Jabby had pulled it off—alone. This meant promotion and acclaim, but more than that it was what you lived for if you were a cop. He could not get enough of the feel of it.
Not hearing the door close behind him, Jablonski looked around, puffing the cigarette. “Hey—what’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Back in a minute.”
As he pulled the door shut, he heard Derby say, “Hey, cop, how about a smoke?”
* * * *
Mrs. Daniels answered his light knock wearing a house dress. Ryan said, “You have a phone in this building?”
“You got him, eh?” she said.
“We got him. Where’s the phone?”
“Well, I just want you to understand I don’t know nothing about him. Not a thing. In fact, I never, seen him—before today.”
“When’d you see him today?”
“This afternoon. He checked in around four.”
Then he came here almost directly from the job.
“He went out again for a little while. Who’s the woman he killed?”
“An old lady. It’s in the papers. How long’d he rent for?”
“A week.”
“Pay in advance?”
“Everyone does. That room was ten bucks. C’mon in.” She stepped back from the door and gestured toward the whisky bottle on the chair. “Have a jolt.”
“I can’t now. You go ahead.”
She poured a shot glass full.
“So he paid you ten bucks in advance. With a ten dollar bill, eh?”
Too late she realized the direction of these casual questions. She indignantly put the glass down untasted on the bureau. From overhead came the sound of someone walking.
“I didn’t say it was a ten.”
“Let’s see it.”
“I didn’t say I still had it.”
“Then who’s got it?”
She looked a quick calculation at him. “I loaned it to a friend who was going to Chicago.”
“Where was he going in Chicago? What’s his name?”
She said, “I dunno,” looked at him covertly and stopped.
“Look, lady. That bill is evidence in a murder case—murder, get it? I won’t take any malarkey about Chicago. Get it out.”
Her face grew sullen. The man upstairs walked back again fast across the floor. It registered only subconsciously with Ryan.
“He rented the room,” she said doggedly. “I got a right to it.”
“You could get it back.”
“Yeah!”
“You could if it wasn’t stolen. But first it will have to be used as evidence. Come on—I haven’t got all day.”
She walked to the bureau in broken shoes, a resentful, helpless, middle-aged little girl. She took a small purse from a drawer, drew a bill from it and looked at the bill. Then she picked up the whisky, drank it effortlessly and extended the money to Ryan.
“That was going to buy me a new dress.” Her eyes never left the bill.
Ryan thought of how his sister was with a new dress or skirt. That’s how it would have been with Mrs. Daniels.
He took an envelope from his wallet, placed the ten dollar bill in it and replaced it carefully. Then he took out two fives of his own money. He defended himself to himself on the ground that he was tired and that it was late, and that it was better to keep the witnesses friendly.
“Look,” he said. “Long as you need this dough, I’ll replace it out of my own pocket, see? This isn’t exactly regulation, but after the trial when you may get the bill back I’ll drop by and pick it up from you. Otherwise you owe me ten bucks. Okay?”
It embarrassed him the way her face softened and unsuspected dimples appeared in her crepe-skinned cheeks. “Well now, that’s nice of you, it really is. Though of course why the God—the cops…police, I mean—”
“Okay, okay. Now where’s the phone?”
The hoarse, enraged shout that came from the floor above was sheer guttural but he knew at once it was Jablonski’s. There came a scurry of feet and a thump.
Ryan leaped for the door, grabbed his gun and ran recklessly up the stairs. The door to Derby’s room was still closed. He flung it open cautiously and stepped backward out of reach.
Then he looked into the room.
Derby, his back to the wall again, seemed to be doing a kind of dance, while Jablonski stood in front of him, gun in hand, aiming deliberate kicks at his shins and thighs whenever opportunity presented. Then he realized that Derby’s dance was an effort to avoid the kicks. At the same time a gurgle broke from Derby, and Ryan with horrible foreboding recognized that Derby was convulsed with laughter.
Ryan ran in and pulled Jablonski back.
But laughter made Derby helpless. No long
er having to defend himself, he leaned against the wall, his gaunt face wrinkled weirdly, tears wetting his cheeks, high tremolos welling up from within him.
“For God’s sake!” gasped Ryan.
Rage made Jablonski’s face black. “The son of a bitch,” he began. “The dirty, sow-headed son of a bitch—have you called in?”
“Not yet. I was talking to the landlady. But what—”
Derby’s laugh became a snicker.
“The son of a bitch burned up that C-note,” cried Jablonski, frenzied, and Derby went off into a new convulsion.
He must be crazy, was the first thing Ryan thought. Derby was still handcuffed. They’ve both gone nuts. But he turned toward the table.
The hundred dollar bill was gone.
So was Derby’s pipe. That lay on the floor and near it was a still-smoking dottle of tobacco. Then he understood.
“How do you…like your murder case now, cop…copper?” Derby struggled with laughter.
Jablonski did not look at Ryan. Ryan did not say anything.
“After you left he asked me for a cigarette,” Jablonski said.
“He knew you didn’t have any. You’d bummed one from me.”
“So he said could he get his pipe on the table. I thought, what the hell? He was cuffed. Why shouldn’t the slob smoke? I backed away and let him walk over to the table. He must have picked up the C-note with the pipe.”
“And stuffed it in with the tobacco and lit it.”
“Yeah. I noticed it sort of flared, but he’d had trouble packing it with the cuffs on and—”
Derby whooped and started to laugh again.
“It wasn’t until I went over to get a chair and set down that I look at the table and seen the bill was gone. At first I couldn’t figure it. Then I thought of the pipe. I pulled it outta his mouth—” He made an impotent gesture with his hand.
Ryan picked up the tobacco dottle. It was hopeless. Perhaps the lab men could prove scientifically that some flakes of the ash had originally been government banknote paper. But as evidence that Harry Derby had possessed the identical bill of which Mrs. Connors had been robbed, it was useless. Derby had outwitted Jablonski even with Jablonski gloatingly watching over him. Ryan felt a hot surge of hatred for Jablonski, and for Derby.
Derby watched him with the wise air of an old fox. “Still gonna send me up?” he chuckled.
“There’s plenty of evidence.” Ryan wouldn’t flinch in the sight of the enemy. “Plenty of evidence. You’re in the chair right now, Derby.” He wanted to jar Derby, to beat him down with naked fists, to make him feel the cold discouragement that was beginning to hurt himself. After all this…all they had done… Derby had beaten them.
“There’s three dames made you this afternoon,” he said with deliberate cruelty. “They’re the ones that will give you the chair. That C-note was just contributory evidence. You’re dead, Derby.”
But there was discouragement in the air. Everyone felt it and none more than Derby. Ryan took out his cigarettes. There were three left. He offered one to Jabby.
“How about a smoke for me?” asked Derby impudently.
Jablonski walked over and kicked Derby’s thin buttocks. Derby continued standing against the wall. He grinned determinedly but he did not laugh any more. The time for laughter was over. Now they were up to the next move.
Jablonski thumbed Ryan over toward the door and followed him. “We’re in trouble,” he muttered. Ryan knew this was really Jablonski’s trouble, but there was no point in thinking about that now.
He said, “Well, we still got a case.”
Jablonski looked old and tired, and it wasn’t just the gray stubble sprouting from his jowls. “Like hell we got a case.”
“There’s the gun.”
“Maybe it checks and maybe not. The slug may have been smashed inside her head.”
“Well, there’s the women—”
“Those women won’t be worth a damn by the time this guy goes to trial,” growled Jablonski. “Wait’ll his friends start calling them up nights. Or dropping around and making cracks about their husbands and kids. They won’t be nearly so sure as they were downtown.”
“But jeez, Jabby—” Ryan had to try to keep his voice low.
“And he’ll have an alibi a yard long. Half the longshoremen in New York will swear he was playing cards with them all afternoon. We know what he was doing. But who the hell will believe us?”
“There’s the bank clerk,” said Ryan. “And just now I got one of the tens.”
Jablonski exploded. “Banks don’t keep no record of regular ten dollar bills! Ain’t you ever been in a bank? And as for the teller—he wasn’t even sure the guy came up to the cage. What kind of identification will that make?”
He was silent a moment and when he spoke again it was with the wistfulness of acknowledged defeat. “We’ve lost him, kid. We can take him in—and he’ll go to trial. Least, if the D.A. is willing to take any kind of chance at all. But he’ll never in God’s world go up. And you can blame it on me—all on me! Because I’m a dumb—”
The rest was bitter self-denunciation. But there were tears in Jablonski’s eyes.
Derby could not hear what they said but he could understand their postures. “What’s ’a matter?” he mocked. “Something wrong? Didn’t I smack down the old dame? Huh? Ain’t you got no case after all this? Huh? Hey, squarehead—listen! I killed the broad. You hear that? You got a confession, Polack! What you gonna do with it? Let’s see you prove I said it! Still wanna try to beat Farragut?”
Jablonski turned, bent on destruction.
And he paused. His sullen and morose face grew suddenly crafty. “Hey,” he said, looking around. “Neill, what was that you picked up in that apartment this afternoon?” Ryan flushed. He hadn’t realized Jabby had noticed it.
“A little piece of the lamp?” Jablonski insisted. “Huh?”
“Yeah. I guess it was that.”
“Still got it?”
“Ah…yes.”
“Give it to me,” said Jablonski. “Come on. Come on! I got an idea.”
CHAPTER 5
You Can Be Thinking of Me
Jablonski pulled Ryan’s head close to his own and whispered in husky, meat-flavored whispers. As he did, Ryan’s expression lengthened.
“But that’s—well, manufacturing evidence,” he said.
“Sure it is.” Jablonski spoke airily but he was watching Ryan.
“It’s—well, it’s like framing the guy.” Ryan didn’t like it. Fairness and respect for the letter of the law were implicit in him.
“Framing!” Jablonski’s scorn was boisterous. “Framing a guy like Derby? You checked the numbers on that bill yourself, Neill. You heard him admit he killed her, didn’t you? Framing, for God’s sake! All we’re doing is proving what we know. It ain’t as if he was innocent.”
“I know it’s not as if he was innocent,” Ryan muttered. “It’s just—that tampering with evidence…”
He felt weary and oddly numb. It was getting on towards three a.m.; this had been a tough night. It was no time to debate the subtler shades of justice. Still, he didn’t like it.
“Look, Neill,” Jablonski said. “He killed her—we know that. And when he hit her with the lamp he could have got a little of the dust on his jacket. So all we do now is—well, just make sure he did.”
“Sure, but…”
“Look, Neill.” For Jablonski necessity had become the mother of eloquence. “I want this collar bad—so do you. You know what it can do for both of us. And you know what happens to my retirement if it gets back to the desk that I let him burn that C-note. If we bring Derby in and then lose the case against him—”
“Sure,” said Ryan uncomfortably. “Sure. I know. But when he rumbles that he was framed—then where are you?”
Jab
lonski snorted. “Who the hell will believe him? Look, Neill. We got a case against him now—of sorts. What we need is the clincher. That’s what the hundred dollar bill was until we—until I let him burn it. That’s what your little piece of pottery will be, especially the way I’ll do it. Jeez, can you imagine him getting on the stand and claiming that I—well, you can see for yourself.”
Ryan nodded. What Jablonski proposed doing was fantastic. That’s what made it safe.
Derby, straining his ears, sensed something going wrong. He chanced a quick squint over his shoulder. He did not like what he saw.
“We don’t have anything to worry about.” In reassuring Ryan, Jablonski was also reassuring himself. “Matter of fact, our only real trouble would come from telling the truth.” He saw that this was the wrong tack. “Look, Neill, do you think you have any right to let this guy go free? What about all the women who are out nights working? What’ll you say if he’s turned loose and knocks off another dame? All you’re doing is what you promised to do the day you took your oath.”
He was right, of course. A more experienced cop wouldn’t give it a second thought, Ryan thought, not when a guy like Derby was involved. It was just the idea of someone going to the chair, even when he was guilty, on the basis of manufactured evidence. But what was the alternative—giving him a good chance to go free? They couldn’t do that.
“Okay,” he heard himself say. “Go ahead. Here it is.”
Jablonski took the little yellow-glazed button of china.
Ryan lit his last cigarette. Derby frowned suspiciously at the baseboard. Jablonski walked to the door, grinning craftily.
There was a crumpled brown paper sack in the wastebasket near it. Jablonski smoothed it out on the table and placed the little chip on it. He set a beer can on it and pressed down hard, grunting. The little fragment of china crumbled with a grating noise.
Derby’s mouth was a tight apprehensive slit. Something was going wrong.
Jablonski pressed the can on the china fragments again, grinding them down. Then he rolled the can on them like a rolling pin, reducing them to powder. He rolled steadily, looking up once to grin at Ryan. “Get his jacket on him,” he said.
Dead Sure Page 4