“Soon’s I get this other table, Sarge.”
“No one was wounded really, were they, Ed?” asked Inez.
Ryan and Jablonski exchanged looks. “No,” said Jablonski. “Not really—except Derby. He got roughed up a little. In fact—” he looked at Ryan and winked—“I would say we didn’t do him a bit of good. Eh, Neill? We really fixed him.”
Jablonski laughed with such obvious double meaning that Ryan wished he would shut up. No one could know what Jablonski meant. But it shouldn’t be talked about anywhere, before anyone.
“What do you mean, Ed?” Inez leaned yearningly toward him.
Six ounces of whisky had thickened Jablonski’s tongue. “I mean that Neill and I managed to make a case against Derby that no defense lawyer is gonna—”
Ryan grew desperate. “How about dancing?” was all he could think of. “Come on, Jabby—while the music’s going.”
“Hell with it,” said Jablonski. “I’m no dancer. I’m a drinker. Where’s that lousy Fritz got to?”
Ryan looked at Gee Gee and she smiled at him.
He got up because he had to now, but he hadn’t wanted it this way. He leaned over Jablonski. “Keep your mouth shut,” he whispered. Jablonski, slack-mouthed, gave him a wise wink.
Gee Gee drew out of her coat. She was wearing a plain dress of gray wool, and the figure beneath it had not been reconstructed into cones and spheres by the usual undergarments and did not need to be. It made Ryan forget even Jablonski.
The piano rippled into “Just One of Those Things,” and Ryan put his arm around her.
“You and Ed work together, I gather,” she said after a moment. It was strange to hear Jabby called Ed.
“Yes. We’ve been partners about a week. And you and Inez?”
“We work together too. Or did until tonight.”
“What happened tonight?”
“Well, you’ll hear it sooner or later. The club where we work let out Inez. They’ve hired a new kid—a cool singer.”
“I didn’t know Inez was a singer.”
“That’s, right. Blues. And you know what cool jazz has done to that.”
“You sing too?”
“No, I dance. As a matter of fact—” again the crinkly-eyed smile—“I’m what they call an exotic dancer. You know—a stripper. Although in New York it’s not quite stripping.”
This was the first time Ryan had ever met a stripper. He said, “I’ll bet you’re good at it,” and then wondered if that had been tactful.
“I’ve only been doing it a few months. Before that I was in the chorus. Some people think it’s indecent. But if you don’t have to do anything dirty and you’ve got a good body, I can’t see any harm in it. And the place we’re in gets a nice crowd—as clubs go.”
“Why sure.” But Ryan was off balance. This girl was not what he had thought when she first sat down at the table, and even the knowledge that she was an “exotic dancer” did not alter this new, growing opinion. She was unselfconscious and wholesome, and when her pliant dancing pressed her close to him and a coppery curl brushed his cheek, Ryan, far from considering certain opening gambits, felt embarrassed and respectful, and he could think of nothing to say.
“Well, anyway—” she looked up at him—“I’m not sorry my date had to work tonight.”
“I’m mighty glad,” and Ryan grinned at her with happy awkwardness. He whirled her around and she followed dexterously; she was really a marvelous dancer. “What’s he do—is he an entertainer too?”
“No, but his working hours are almost as bad. He called me at the club just before closing time to say he was on something really big and would be working the rest of the night. He’s a newspaperman.”
Even mention of the word was enough to alarm Ryan momentarily. “Oh really?” he said. “What’s his name? I know a few.” Which was an exaggeration.
“I guess he’s working on some kind of big scoop,” said Gee Gee. “His name is Sandalwood—Jack Sandalwood.”
And for Ryan all pleasure in the evening ended. He looked toward their table. Jabby and Inez were deep in conversation.
Keep your drunken mouth shut!
Fresh drinks awaited them when they stopped dancing. Gee Gee excused herself to go upstairs, and for a second an absurd suspicion crossed Ryan’s mind that she might be going to telephone her boy friend with what she might have learned from Jablonski’s implications. He sat down at the table and picked up a new drink. But he told himself, You better watch this stuff.
Jablonski and Inez did not notice his presence. Inez was looking down at her glass; Jablonski, his face heavy with liquor and fatigue and white stubble, spun the rim of his glass with thick fingers.
“Well, that’s how it is,” said Jablonski. “Sure, we’ve had fun together. But you always knew I’d retire sooner or later. And Sarah and I figure…”
Ryan realized what he had walked in on. He wanted to leave, but he did not know what Jablonski might have told her while he and Gee Gee were dancing. And now Jablonski was ditching her.
“Sarah and I figure we’ll try and make a go of it again. With this deal in New Rochelle…”
Inez looked up suddenly. Her eyes were swimming and her face was a ghastly smile. “I know, I know,” she said. “You never made any promises, Ed. And neither did I. But more than once, when you’d been drinking a little, maybe, you told me how one of these days you and Sarah would break permanent. And then you and I…”
She broke off; she seemed about to begin to weep openly. Instead she gained strength from some inner source. She straightened up and her face grew hard and cynical, and even as a tear spilled over one eyelid and down a pale cheek she said, “Hell with it,” down in her throat and raised her glass and drained it and put it down with finality. She studied it and her low-held head was no longer ash-blond, but silver-threaded and old.
Gee Gee came back, sat down and, looking at Inez, misinterpreted what she saw.
“Aw, don’t feel so bad about it, honey.” She patted Inez’s purple-taloned hand. “There’s plenty of better places you can work. Your agent—”
Inez smiled glassily at her. “This is just my night,” she said. “Ed just told me he’s retiring and moving out. That’s nice too, eh, kid?”
“Well, what else happened tonight?” demanded Jablonski aggressively.
“They fired me,” said Inez. “Ol’ Max fired me. After all these years. The joint’s getting itself a new shouter.”
Ryan picked his drink up again and, although he knew he shouldn’t, he drank it down.
* * * *
After a time Fritz came in with a bundle of Daily News. The dawn cold had touched his pallid cheeks with scarlet. “Hey,” he called from the stairs. “You guys are famous.”
He distributed tabloids like a newsboy. They were cold and damp and on the front page, almost life size, there was a picture of a man with his hat pushed back over curly hair, holding a telephone to his ear, shrewd young eyes round and the mouth open with awe. It was Ryan, talking a few hours before to the commissioner.
“Holy God,” said Ryan.
“Let’s see,” said Gee Gee. “Oh, look. That’s cute. See, Inez?” She looked back to Ryan. “But I don’t think it does you justice.”
“Hey!” cried Jabby. “Listen!” He had opened his paper and read, “Two fast-thinking detectives of the Seventeenth Squad—one a veteran on the eve of retirement and the other a rookie on his first murder case—fought and shot it out early today with Harry Derby, the dock hoodlum wanted for the murder of a grandmother, and they brought him in.
“‘Derby allegedly confessed the brutal slaying yesterday afternoon of Mrs. Thelma Connors, 63, in her apartment at 585 East Sixty-first Street.
“‘The two detectives, whose nervy work brought them the immediate commendation of Police Commissioner Drumm, are Detective Third
Class Edmund A. Jablonski, 53, who retires from the force next week, and Probationary Detective O’Neill Ryan, 28, promoted from patrolman only four days ago. The two cops spotted Derby, a three-time loser for whom a 13-state alarm was out…’”
As Jablonski read other customers gathered around their table, and when he had finished they broke into applause. Then there was much backslapping and many congratulations, which made Ryan feel a little ridiculous but also very happy that Gee Gee was there for it. Even Inez dabbed powder around her eyes, smiled and congratulated them both.
There were drinks bought for them, and Ryan decided the best way to silence Jablonski’s babbling tongue was to let him get as drunk as possible.
After a time he looked inquiringly at Gee Gee, wordlessly suggesting another dance. She nodded almost imperceptibly at Inez. Ryan understood and felt proud of his perception and at Gee Gee’s asking a favor of him. With the elaborate gallantry of the half-drunk he asked Inez to dance. She looked pleased, and as they rose Gee Gee smiled warm appreciation.
But later, when the pianist began “I Concentrate on You,” which had always been a favorite of his, Ryan asked Gee Gee to dance again. This time he held her closer, and the fragrance of her hair and that lissome body all seemed to make her the most tender and desirable and beautiful thing in the world. Before the dance was over Ryan noticed an unnatural radiance around the window’s heavy drape and after a time he realized that it was the light of morning. He didn’t care.
* * * *
When they left he had to help Jablonski get to the cab, and early office-goers who passed them turned curious, sleep-wrapped faces to give them a second glance. Ryan took Gee Gee to her door (how incongruous that this ravishing girl should live in a slattern apartment building beyond Eighth Avenue), and at the door he tried suddenly and drunkenly to kiss her. She somehow turned away, it seemed by accident, but she did present a cheek…
Ryan went back to the cab in a daze.
After they had ridden in silence for a few blocks he said, “What the hell did you tell that dame about Derby?” But Jablonski was asleep.
The cab let Ryan off at his home first, for Jablonski lived in Queens. Ryan gave the cab driver instructions.
The first-floor apartment where Ryan lived appeared empty. Then he gratefully remembered this was Friday; his sister worked and his mother would be at the Altar Society coffee to plan the Sunday altar flowers. That was a relief; he did not like coming home like this, and he did not want her to see him. Ryan had grown up in a neighborhood where drunkenness was common enough to be neither smart nor funny but a disgrace.
But as he took off hat and coat his mother came out of the kitchen. “Why, where have you been, boy?” she said anxiously.
He kissed her on the cheek. “We had a heavy night, ma. You’ll see about it in the papers.” He did not want to tell it now.
“It’s always a heavy night,” she complained. Complaint did not become her; she was a tiny, merry woman. Ryan held her coat for her, bending over to get the sleeve holes right for her short arms. “I really began to worry,” she said.
“You ought to know better,” he chided. “You’ve lived with cops long enough.”
She said nothing, but the words twisted a knife blade in her heart. The nights she had waited for his father. And there had been the night… “I’m going to the Altar meeting. There’s coffee simmering on the stove.”
“Thanks, ma.” He took a cup into his bedroom, pulled down the blind and undressed, swaying, while he sipped coffee. He switched on the bedside radio and then lay down, feeling the press of cool pajamas against his liquor-heated body.
The ceiling spun slightly. Ryan, sobering, felt depressed. The radio came on with a little roar.
“…teen minutes to nine, girls,” a man’s voice drawled.
“All I can say is,” and Ryan recognized the familiar voice of Dorothy Kilgallen, “that in spite of my years as a reporter in this town I never cease to marvel at the job New York’s cops do.”
“Honey, I agree with that completely. And I know what you mean.”
“It’s that story in the News. Just suppose it had been you or me who spotted that—that tough man. Would you have liked to follow him into a dark street and into some old rooming house? And just walk in on him?”
“Dear, I’m afraid not. I think that New York’s finest are—well, the greatest, that’s all. And as you say, these two detectives—what were their names?”
“Jablonski. Edmund Jablonski. And O’Neill Ryan. Isn’t that a wonderful name?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Ryan muttered.
“…ought to take up a collection for them,” the man’s voice said.
“They couldn’t accept it, honey. The department doesn’t permit that.”
“Just keep Sandalwood off my neck,” growled Ryan and switched off the radio.
He fell back on the pillow. The ceiling spun again. He closed his eyes… That Gee Gee… He slept.
PART TWO: THE BIG NEWS
CHAPTER 8
The White Sheep
A plea of not guilty was entered for Derby when he was arraigned, and since the murder had created so much public indignation his examination was scheduled for three days later. He was bound over to the grand jury and it held him for trial without bail. This was all predictable.
When Ryan returned to work, it was as a hero. His routine and Jablonski’s were disturbed for several days by newspaper reporters, Sunday feature writers, magazine researchers, photographers and true crime story authors. At first their questions alarmed him. But when he came to realize that these interrogations were directed less toward discovering anything than to proving an already-established point of view, he began to relax. Circumstances had conspired to make him a temporary public figure; Ryan accepted it and after the initial reluctance even entered in with quiet-mannered willingness. His mother and sister complained about the constant telephone calls at home, but he noticed that his mother was never too busy in the kitchen to dry her hands and come to the telephone, and that when a photographer was coming, Eleanor usually had on a new dress and fresh makeup.
Meanwhile, the department had engaged in the usual tedious and vital routine. The bullet taken from the dead woman’s head was found to have been shot from the revolver found in Derby’s room. The money that Derby had spent at the delicatessen was recovered and as far as could be told might have been one of the tens that Mrs. Connors had obtained from the bank. The partial fingerprints found in the apartment did not check out; they were the dead woman’s. But there were two loan sharks named Morgan who worked the docks; one hung around Pier Ninety in Manhattan, the other in Brooklyn. The first did not know Derby and was eager to testify that he had never loaned him money. The second did know Derby and had occasionally done business with him. But when two detectives found him he had been smoking opium in a Williamsburg flophouse for forty-eight hours, and was white and sweating. He was glad to admit that he had not loaned Harry Derby any money recently.
Far more important, McGinnis and Minor went out to Derby’s house and talked to his sister, a thin, blond-haired girl with the calm detachment of resignation. She worked as librarian for a midtown athletic club, and when they asked if she had seen her brother Harry on the afternoon of the Connors murder she said she had not because she developed a sick headache that day and had gone home early in the afternoon.
McGinnis asked whom she had seen there, and she said the house had been empty. Other careful questions elicited that she had arrived home before two p.m., and that she had been alone in the Derby apartment on East Seventy-third Street from that time until sometime between six-thirty and seven, when her younger brother had come home from work. That shattered Derby’s alibi that he had been enjoying a nap there that afternoon.
A child found a small black change purse a block from the Connors’ apartment; it bore a faint smear of blo
od which the lab proved was Mrs. Connors’. A police scientist in the lab spent most of one day extracting tiny particles of plaster dust from the hairy wool of Derby’s jacket. The spectroscope proved beyond doubt that the particles came from the lamp used to bludgeon Mrs. Connors.
Shortly before Jablonski retired he and Ryan went downtown to the district attorney’s office and spent forty minutes with Assistant District Attorney Gil Tilbury. He proved to be an excessively thin young man in an expensively tailored suit, buttoned-collar shirt and casually correct striped tie. He laughed often and confidently, and lolled back in his chair until it creaked to show how supremely at ease he was. He told Ryan and Jablonski that he couldn’t wait to try this case and that Derby was as good as in the death house. He twiddled a Phi Beta Kappa key.
That evening Ryan sat at home watching a fight on television before leaving for work; he was now on the late tour, midnight to eight a.m. His mother had gone to a card party and his sister was in her bedroom doing something intricate and time-consuming to her hair.
Ryan in sweatshirt and slippers felt lazy and relaxed after sleeping all day. It was a nice way to feel, lying on the couch watching two other guys over at St. Nick’s Arena do the heavy work for a while. Occasionally the camera swept the ringsiders, and one of them was a girl who looked like Gee Gee. Probably he ought to call her again. But he’d called twice and missed her each time, and he didn’t want to appear anxious. Maybe tomorrow it would be all right. The doorbell rang.
Ryan lifted himself off the couch and groped his way from the darkened living room to the hall. When he reached the front door he saw through its window that the caller standing outside on the porch was a man and that he was tall and lean.
Then the man moved his head and Ryan caught his profile.
It was Derby.
Even while Ryan watched incredulous, Derby turned and gave the bell an irritable double ring.
Ryan began taking long tiptoe strides back the way he came through the living room and into his own bedroom. He removed the pistol from the holster on the bureau. He cocked it and picked up a flashlight, then returned quietly to the hall. He could feel the beat of his heart.
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