“Yes. We’d figured it as a chancy, spur-of-the-moment job from the start.”
“Sure. Who cases an old lady in advance? And it was even chancier than you think. He took the jacket, found the weapon and had the motive. He had a few drinks at lunch, D’Tela said, and I can testify he gets out of hand when he’s had a few drinks. Everything combined.
“I figure he went into the bank to get change like a deliveryman often has to do. He saw the old lady and the hundred buck bill. Perhaps it was only chance he spotted her again, going into the apartment. In any case he saw his opportunity to follow her in, put the gun on her—and escape out the back through the building behind. Remember, he worked that part of town regularly, as his boss told me, and could know these buildings pretty well. And D’Tela was busy running bundles, too. Derby had only to circle around and get back on the truck, which was the perfect escape vehicle. Who’d suspect a delivery man of an armed heist? Of course, after what happened he was afraid to flash that C-note on D’Tela.”
“Was D’Tela in on it?”
“No. Why need he have been? He was on and off the truck a lot that day. Ken would not have told him anything. Another thing: look how Harry’s peculiar behavior confirms it. He’d found himself a new place to stay for a while—he had left home determined to find one. And he wanted his jacket and gun back, naturally enough. So he came to the place where he knew he would be sure to meet Ken at the end of the day’s run—the trucking office. And of course he got them. He looked surly and tough, D’Tela mentioned. Why wouldn’t he—he was mad at Ken. And the—”
He had been about to say, “And the C-note I figure was in the jacket pocket. Or else maybe he borrowed money from Ken and got it that way.” But he caught that before it got out. Instead, he said, “And the two brothers must have talked things over a little; for when we arrested him Harry showed from what he said that he knew an old woman had been robbed. He didn’t know she was dead—maybe Ken himself didn’t know or wasn’t sure when they met. But that’s why Harry was walking the streets so openly later on—he had no idea a murder rap was involved, or that he had been identified in it. He hadn’t seen the early tabloids. When he found out, he clammed up to protect himself and his brother.”
“Do you think he’d have gone to the chair for Ken?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it sounds nuts, but if you’d talked to Harry in Sing Sing—well, he knew he was trapped one way or the other. And they sure were devoted, as Rosemary said. Look how fast Ken moved and the chances he took to frame Mackie, as soon as he learned about the cuff link. I should never have mentioned that to Rosemary but I guess Ken was so close to the whole thing I never dreamt… And Mackie looked hot.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the nurse firmly.
“Okay, Miss.” Bauer got up. “One other thing. Ken said he knew that you could never be interested in his sister now, and he felt bad about it.” Bauer looked down at Ryan. “Whatever that means. She told me she’s taking a job out in Milwaukee next month. Well, don’t worry about a thing.”
Ryan grinned. “I don’t. I’ll be up in few days.”
“Sure you will,” said Bauer hastily. It was not until he left that Ryan realized Bauer had not been referring to his convalescence.
Next day his mother visited him, proudly bearing a new scrapbook, in which she had pasted the newspaper accounts of the gun battle at Mackie’s. All the stories explained that even after Harry Derby’s conviction Ryan had not been satisfied with the result and had continued working on the case in his spare time, with the result that Harry would now be tried for the drugstore robbery and Ken for the Connors murder. One of the most laudatory stories was bylined “By Jack Sandalwood.” None of them mentioned anything about planted evidence.
One item in the scrapbook was a Walter Winchell gossip column, in which one line was ringed in ink:
“Gee Gee Hawes, the star attraction, is holding hands with what star reporter?”
On his last day in the hospital Ryan received a new Faulkner novel in which was a note. “Good-by and thanks. I’m getting away from here. Too many people know too many things. And now there’s only me left, anyway. A girl in Milwaukee has invited me to stay with her. I’m leaving the middle of next month.” It was signed “R.”
He returned to the precinct on an unseasonably warm afternoon that made people think of things to come, like flower peddlers’ wagons and three weeks on the Cape, and cotton dresses and seersucker suits. He walked up the steps and inside the old, cool building, and Sergeant Weiner said, “How you feeling, boy?” and put out a hand of welcome. “Paul wants to see you when you got a moment.”
“Thanks, Al.”
Lee Lambert came down the stairs. “Hi, Lee,” said Ryan, and Lambert looked at him and said, “Hi,” and went on out. Lambert was in a hurry.
Ryan started up the stairs. He still had to take these easy. A young patrolman started down at the same time; Ryan recognized him as the rookie who had begun here about the same time he did. The rookie passed him without a glance and without even giving him half the stairs. Everyone seemed in a hurry.
Bauer and a stranger were going over papers at Bauer’s desk. Bauer said, “Lieutenant Zimmer, this is Neill Ryan.” Zimmer said, “Hello.” Bauer shook hands and asked how he felt. Ryan said fine.
“Jerry and I are going over everything because I pull out next week, and he’s taking over,” said Bauer. “I’m going downtown.”
“I’m glad for you,” said Ryan. “But I’m sorry you’re leaving, Lieutenant.” Zimmer’s presence made the formal salutation necessary.
“He’s Acting Captain now, Ryan,” said Zimmer, and added, “Don’t feel too badly. You won’t be here much longer either.” For the first time Zimmer smiled.
So did Bauer, but his expression was pleasant. “It came through yesterday, Neill. You’re going up to Harlem.”
Ryan looked at them. Harlem?
“I never asked for duty there,” he said. “Or even for a transfer. How come?”
“You’ve done a hell of a job, Neill,” said Bauer. “Don’t let anyone tell you different.” He looked at Zimmer. “They need good men up there. You know what the Twenty-fifth is like. Something doing every minute. It’s a compliment.”
Ryan’s knees felt shaky. Things were coming too fast. Three months ago he would have killed himself to win words like that from Paul Bauer. Now they didn’t sit right. Maybe it was Zimmer, coldly watching him. Zimmer picked up a piece of paper from his desk and tossed it to him. “Here’s something else.” Ryan knew he would not like it.
It was a teletype. Patrolmen Arne Sieger and T. di Paolo at ten-twenty a.m. that day, driving a patrol car along Amsterdam Avenue, had seen a man run from a liquor store and had challenged him. The man ran and then fired back at the police car. One of his shots hit di Paolo’s pistol, knocking it from his hand and spraining his wrist. Sieger had driven abreast of the gunman, called on him to drop his gun and then shot him through the head. The dead bandit had been identified as Harry Derby, thirty-seven years old, out on bail pending trial for a drugstore holdup.
“Your boy friend,” said Zimmer. He rose suddenly as though he could stand this no longer. “I’ll put these back in the file, Paul.” He went out, walking on hard heels.
It had taken a while but Ryan got it now.
Bauer saw that in his face. “Relax,” he said. “They’ll get over this. You know how it is. Everyone gets edgy when a cop gets hit.”
“Like hell,” said Ryan. “The one thing everyone remembers is I sprung Derby. If he’d been in the death house he’d never have shot anyone.”
“He didn’t hurt anyone,” said Bauer. “What’s a sprained wrist?”
“Tell that to the guy he shot at,” said Ryan. “And why am I being transferred?”
“Look, Neill. You couldn’t expect to say here forever. You got to move around, see the job
at different levels, in different areas. A year in Harlem, a year ’way downtown, a couple years with one of the specials—you’ll be learning all the time. Don’t think everyone feels like Zimmer. Most people feel like I do. You’ll see.”
Ryan’s heart was pounding. What the hell were they doing to him?
“I mean it, Neill.” Bauer spoke sharply, making Ryan look at him. “Any time I have a chance to have you working for me, I want you. Know why? Because you’re level. I don’t mean the others aren’t. Zimmer’s honest, too, according to his lights. But you’ve proven what you are by what you did for Derby, and his being killed has nothing to do with it. Zimmer don’t understand that, but you do and you’ve got to allow for the Zimmers. If you don’t like that, and can’t stand it, this place isn’t for you. Otherwise—get the hell up to Harlem.”
Bauer had never raised his voice. But when he put out his hand. Ryan took it.
When Ryan went back downstairs a familiar figure—incredible!—was leaning against the desk, talking to Weiner with loud confidence. Time had turned backward.
“For the love of mike—Jabby!”
Jablonski swung around. His gray sports jacket had Jabby embroidered in white silk across the left pocket. “Neill! I was just askin’ about you.”
Ryan was genuinely glad to see Jablonski, and Jablonski was so stirred he replaced his half-smoked cigar with a new one.
“I dropped in to pick up a picture,” he said. “How long you out of the hospital?”
“A week. A picture?”
“Yeah. One of the guys on the Teley got a good shot of us that night we came in with Derby. I thought I’d put it up in my joint. People are interested in things like that.”
“Sure.” Ryan looked at the photograph Jabby pulled from its envelope. It showed a confusion of uniforms and reporters in this very entrance. Jabby was a hat and a half-face in the background.
“If you’re going uptown I’ll give you a lift,” said Jablonski. “I got the station wagon.”
Weiner and Ryan looked at each other.
“Who drove in, Jab?” asked Al Weiner. “You or your man?”
“Oh, shut up,” said Jablonski. “A secondhand station wagon don’t cost no more than any other car. And it’s handy for groceries and things.”
The station wagon was in the parking lot next door. Jabby started it, relit his cigar, and said,
“Hey, you know something? That guy Sandalwood was around here earlier. I guess he doesn’t know I’m retired.” Jablonski swelled importantly. “He saw me and he says, ‘Hey, give your partner Ryan a message for me.’ So I say, ‘What?’ He says, ‘Tell Ryan that Derby’s getting killed this morning is the luckiest thing that ever happened—to Ryan. Now no one can bother him.’ What do you suppose that meant?”
“I don’t know. Nothing much.”
Jablonski drew comfortably on the new cigar. “Well, I can tell you what it could have meant—if that jerk Sandalwood knew anything. It could mean that with Harry dead, no one in the department need ever find anything out at all. Eh, Neill? Whatever Ken could say would be only hearsay testimony, and from a confessed murderer at that. Eh?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He did not want to talk about it.
But Jabby was busy turning expertly in front of a cab. “The other night I pick up a little talk,” he said. “One of the boys was out. He said you’d been playin’ around with Derby’s sister.”
“Who was this?”
“Look, Neill. You know I’ve always figured you as my—what do you call at, prodigy? You’ve done great. I’m proud of you. But for God’s sake get away from those Derbys. You mess with that dame, what’ll they think of you downtown—a cop married to the sister of two heist guys? You fool around, you’ll be transferred out of this precinct. And this is the place to be.”
That decided Ryan.
* * * *
At ten o’clock next morning in the stiff-chaired anteroom to the chief inspector’s office in New York’s police headquarters a buzzer sounded. The uniformed sergeant at a desk told Ryan, “He’ll see you now.”
Patrick Pembroke’s knobby face looked its usual angry inquiry. “I wanted to ask a question, sir,” said Ryan.
“Go ahead.”
“Before I arrested Ken Derby I saw a little bit of his sister. She’s a decent girl. Not like her brothers. But I’ve been told if I continued to see her, or if by any chance I should marry her, it wouldn’t sit well with the department.”
Pembroke paused. “We don’t usually tell a man whom he should marry.”
“One other thing I’d like to ask, sir. I’ve been transferred from the Seventeenth to the Twenty-fifth Squad. I gather from hints various people have dropped that they feel I was demoted because I—I went out of my way to prove Harry Derby innocent. Which he was.”
Pembroke leaned back and laced bony fingers over his midriff. “So that’s it. Listen, Ryan. No man in my department ever has to be afraid of honesty. You’re not being demoted. We’re transferring four teams into Twenty-five—all of them picked for ability and guts. You were picked. Tell that to the first son of a bitch who suggests different. As for the girl, marry whoever you please. And if anyone doesn’t like it, take a poke at him.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.” He stood up.
Pembroke said, “By the way. What were you going to do if I had said anything else?”
“Well, sir, it was just that I had to get something straight. And I preferred to get it straight from the top.”
“I asked, ‘What were you going to do?’”
Ryan looked levelly at him. “I was going to send in my papers.”
Red-lashed eyes stared unfriendliness at him. “You mind what I said about honesty before you think again of resigning,” he said. “And remember me to your mother. I think I’ve not seen her since her wedding day.”
* * * *
It was only an inexpensive ring but Ryan bought it in a Fifth Avenue store because he did not want her to be ashamed of it. Then he took a cab to the dingy building. It was warm and sunny; the front door was open. Ryan went slowly up the flights of stairs and when he got to her floor, he found the door open. She was sitting in a dark blue flannel dressing gown, sipping breakfast coffee and reading the Mirror.
She glanced up. “Look who’s here!”
She was alone. He was glad of that. “Can I come in?”
“Why not?”
“Catch,” he said and threw the little cube-shaped package.
“What’s this?”
“I picked it up on my way. I had to go down to headquarters before—before buying it. I had to straighten something out. It’s straightened out. I picked this up on my way back.”
He looked at her a long moment. He had been deciding a lot of things, and he knew he had made the right decisions. “It’s an engagement ring. Take it or leave it.”
“An engagement—”
He knew that for once at least he had really surprised her. “Neill!”
“The last time I saw you,” Ryan said, “I did a lot of talking about apartments in Queens and having babies and so on. I still think that’s a good idea. But in the hospital I had time to do a lot more thinking. You were what I thought of most, Gee Gee. I want to marry you more than anything in the world. If you want to go on dancing and so on, I guess it’ll have to be all right with me, at least for a while. But on the other hand, I’ve got to tell you that if another one of these Derby deals come up, I’ll decide it the same way. Because that’s the way I am. And also you better remember what I’ve told you about a cop’s pay before you make any decisions and think of the things I won’t be able to give you—”
She was bent over the ring, putting it on, the coppery hair hiding her face. Now she held her hand up for him and Ryan saw that there were tears on Gee Gee’s cheeks.
“That’s not mu
ch of a rock,” he said. “It probably doesn’t fit anyway.”
“It fits perfectly,” she said tremulously. “And now it’s on, it’s never coming off. Never.”
Suddenly she was in his arms and their mouths found each other’s. “You think I’m going to give up the only guy that’s ever treated me like a—like a girl, instead of just something to grab?”
After a long time Ryan said huskily, “I think we better get married this afternoon.”
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