Peering down over the edge, the detectives had an unobstructed view of the park. Johnson used a waist-high vent to steady his camera. Stern gripped his camera against the side of the stairwell housing. They were careful not to go near the edge because a sudden movement could attract attention from below. Bird 5 was stretched out on a park bench, his head tilted back to catch the sun’s rays.
They sat on a bench near the wading pool and watched Stanislaus pace back and forth in front of them. Stanislaus appeared to be tendering a lecture to backward students. The cameras could only record lip movements, and only when the actors faced them. Stanislaus looked gloomy. Bramson and Kelly would occasionally interrupt to say something. From time to time Braxton would look up and make a comment.
Harrigan transmitted their location to Malone. He cautioned the C.O. not to 10:85 them thereat. The meeting that was going on in the park might adjourn at any moment. One of the conferees might spot him when he was leaving the park.
The meeting inside John Jay Park lasted for another twenty-two minutes and then broke up. Bramson and Kelly were the first to get to their feet and leave. Braxton was next. Stanislaus lingered behind, watching them depart. When they had all gone, Stanislaus walked over to the edge of the park and stared down the precipice at the fast-moving water.
Bird 5 got to his feet and stretched, his arms a V over his head. He turned to his right and walked slowly out of the park.
Malone, Davis, and Heinemann were parked by the sanitation garage, waiting.
Harrigan, Stern, and Johnson were still on the roof watching Stanislaus watch the river.
Stern was the first one to notice the man walking close to the building line on Cherokee Place. The man crossed Seventy-seventh Street and stopped by the entrance of the park. He turned and let his eyes take in the windows and terraces of the Pavilion. He then turned his attention to the cars and vans that were parked nearby. Apparently satisfied that he was not being watched, the man turned back and made his way over to where Stanislaus was standing.
The man leaning over the fence turned and looked into the stern face of Chief Zangline.
“The piano tuner wants to see us,” Zangline said, leaning his back to the fence and examining the park thoroughly.
Stanislaus turned. “When?”
“Now. And we better make damn sure that we’re not followed,” Zangline said.
The Cloister, an igloo-shaped restaurant with triple lancet windows and a groined ceiling, sits atop the heights of Tudor City. It took Zangline and Stanislaus the better part of three hours to reach the restaurant. Their extended journey took in the Staten Island ferry, a tour of Harlem, and a drink at the long bar of Windows of the World. At 6:20 P.M. Zangline’s unmarked car rolled to a stop below the summit of Tudor City. Stanislaus tossed the Vehicle Identification Card on the dashboard and got out. While Stanislaus locked up the car, Zangline read the slogan painted on the stairway wall: HONOR NEW AFRIKAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS!
A Mercedes-Benz limousine was parked in front of the restaurant. A man in a dark suit and wearing a black chauffeur’s cap stood nearby. When the man saw Zangline and Stanislaus he waved and walked over to them. There was a round of handshakes. Zangline touched the man on the shoulder and then he and Stanislaus turned and walked into the restaurant.
The surveillance van was parked a block away, its two-way reflectors facing the Cloister.
Malone pressed the transmit button. “Nest to Central, K.”
“Go. Nest.”
“A ten-fifteen on New York plate Oscar, Union, Charlie, four-eight-six: not holding.”
The answer came in seconds. “Oscar, Union, Charlie four-eight-six comes out to a 1949 Mercedes-Benz limousine, color black; Vin number Frank, Oscar, George, eighty-seven David, one, zero, nine, zero, three, zero, Frank. That’s a ten-seventeen all around. One minute and I will check NCIC.”
Malone waited for Central’s computer to check the stolen-vehicle data bank for the United States. His eyes cut to the chauffeur leaning against the fender and lighting a cigarette. The man had the look of a moonlighting cop or a retiree.
“Central to Nest, K.”
“Go. Central.”
“NCIC is negative, K.”
“Registered owner, K?”
“Vehicle registered to Moorehouse International, Eighty-one Wall Street, New York City, K.”
“Ten-four.” Malone turned to Harrigan. “I want our people inside that restaurant.”
Harrigan warned, “They’ll be made. Zangline and Stanislaus can smell a cop up close.”
Malone said, “Those two went to a lot of trouble to make sure they were not followed. I intend to know why.” His head still ached and his eyeballs felt swollen. He could still taste the blood. He swallowed hard, forcing down the heave. He still had not telephoned Erica, but he promised himself that he would as soon as he could. One detective might get inside without being recognized. Who? He looked from man to man and his stare settled on Starling Johnson. “If you removed your jacket and tie and went around to the service entrance you would look like just another black dishwasher showing up for the evening rush.”
“I’ll give it a shot,” said Johnson, tugging off his tie.
“Give ’em a little soul strut,” Davis said, snapping his fingers and miming a swagger.
Malone said, “When you get inside tell them that the agency sent you. Most restaurants hire their dishwashers on a per diem basis from employment agencies.”
“And then what do I do?” Johnson said.
“You’re a detective—improvise,” Malone said, taking his jacket.
20
SATURDAY, July 4 … Evening
Malone awakened with a start, not sure of where he was. He picked up the sound of a music box, and in the distance, the blare of fire engines. His body throbbed with pain and his eyeballs hurt. His tongue was caked dry. He rubbed his stubble and thought how nice it would be to feel Erica’s thighs pressing against his face. He made a small smile and told himself that he must be getting better. Those thoughts were returning. He dabbed fingertips over his wound. He had removed the bandage. Someone had once told him that fresh air was the best thing to heal an injury. The sutures looked like long, black-legged creatures.
Malone checked the time: 8:15 P.M. His brow knitted into deep lines. Had he really slept that long? He had only intended to rest his head on the desk for a minute or two. The movie film was being developed and then rushed to the Concord School for the Deaf in the Bronx where students would read the subject’s lips and make transcripts of the conversations. One of the detectives had been dispatched to the telephone booth in front of Aldridge Braxton’s house. Returning home directly after the meeting in John Jay Park, Braxton made a fast telephone call from the booth before he hurried into the lobby of his apartment house. The detectives in the Sting Ray had followed him home and seen him make his call.
There had been nothing for Malone to do but wait and think. Sometimes that gets to be the hardest part, waiting, thinking. Police texts discuss the connective-disconnective relationship to the trier of facts. It ain’t that way. It’s plodding the streets, barrooms, and strolls asking questions, calling in past favors. And then waiting, thinking.
His pupils felt like they were floating on ponds of molten lava. He rested his head in his hands. As he did his gaze went to the notes that he had jotted on the pad.
Carter Moorehouse of Moorehouse International, 81 Wall Street, New York City. He was the man Zangline and Stanislaus met in the restaurant.
Detective Johnson had indeed improvised. The black detective had walked into the kitchen of the restaurant unopposed. The help was too busy to take notice of another nigger who had come to clean dirty dishes for below the minimum wage. He walked through the kitchen and entered the locker room that was next to the meat freezer. He grabbed a service jacket from the hook, shrugged it on, and then pushed his way through the swinging doors into the dining room.
The detective spotted Stanislaus and Z
angline sitting at a table within the main dining area. Johnson recognized the third man at the table—Carter Moorehouse. The same Carter Moorehouse who had stood for mayor.
As Malone looked over the notes on Johnson’s visit to the restaurant, he became aware of just how much he knew about Moorehouse.
Carter Moorehouse’s great grandfather made the family fortune in the China trade. The grandfather doubled it in railroads and the father tripled it in banking. The son, Carter, collected companies and other profitable things.
A Calvinist strain had always stiffened the Moorehouse clan and made them frighteningly rigid and vengeful people. It was said that the present patriarch was no exception.
Carter Moorehouse once made a bid for Gracie Mansion on the Conservative line. His defeat was the first of his lifetime and a humiliating one at that. Calvinism and Conservatism were not the in “isms” in New York City.
But if Moorehouse had not won the hearts of the voters, he had become a popular candidate with New York’s Finest. He had pushed a very hard line on crime and made many intelligent suggestions about overhauling the entire criminal justice system. Even the New York Times had to grant him points for his long, thoughtful proposals on city financial reorganization. But as the campaign wore on, the crime issue seemed to evoke something deeply buried in Moorehouse, something more frightening and savage than the voters wanted to hear, even if a lot of them had similar private fantasies of revenge. Malone couldn’t remember exactly when it happened, but the outspoken Times editorial against Moorehouse was brought on by his remarks, delivered off the record, at a meeting of the National Associations of Chiefs of Police in Washington. And from that point it had been downhill. Even the National Review had dropped him in embarrassment.
Malone tried to remember the specifics, the later speeches and doomed battles with the media that had characterized the last, desperate days of Moorehouse’s campaign. But his recollections were too vague; he needed to find out a great deal more about this man, to study him the way he had been trained to study the motives and behavior patterns of criminals. As he sat in the semidarkness of his office, he was filled with a growing conviction that while the public Carter Moorehouse was made inaccessible to him by layers of money, class, and power, the private animal inside Moorehouse was like a lot of the ones he tried to take off the street and put in cages called prisons.
He thought of Zambrano. The wake would be tomorrow night. He had already decided not to attend. He wanted to avoid those curious, secret looks. Besides, he hated wakes. They were barbaric rituals that only served to enrich undertakers. The Jews had the right idea: plant them right away. He knew exactly what Zambrano’s would be like. White-gloved policemen milling about whispering. A large room filled with foul-smelling flowers, stands, overflowing with mass cards, chalices, and vestments. An honor guard formed around the coffin. A prie-dieu that was never empty, an immediate member of the family hovering nearby to accept condolences. The body, cold and stiff and regaled in full uniform, the lips sewed into a death smile. Having to endure the endless, stupid asides: Doesn’t he look wonderful; he looks just like he went to sleep, so natural.
Malone wanted no part of it. He would attend the mass and remember his friend as he was, not as a broken corpse smelling of formaldehyde and undertaker’s cosmetics.
He leaned over and took the bottle of bourbon from the bottom drawer. He poured three fingers into a mug and toasted the empty chair. “Gendarme, my friend.”
As soon as he gulped the drink his head started to spin and his stomach churn. All at once his mouth was filled with saliva. He clasped his hand across his mouth and stumbled from his office into the bathroom, a one-cubicle, one-urinal cubbyhole with a faded mirror that was splotched with soap and other substances.
He knelt in front of the bowl, one hand supporting his head, and vomited. Yellow green chunks. His eyes teared. The floor was cold. Brown dots caked the bowl. He heaved and heaved until there was nothing left to come up. His stomach was raw. Sore. He gripped the rim and hoisted himself up.
The basin was laced with dried suds and the one piece of soap was smudged black. He put his head under the faucet and turned on the cold water. Zambrano had been right; he was turning into a bum in a flophouse.
When he got back to his office he started to telephone around town trying to locate Jack Fine. He was not at his desk at the Daily News. He started to phone Fine’s haunts. Vinny at Dangerfield’s told him that he had not seen the reporter in a few days. He called P.J.’s, Dewy’s, and Mary Ellen’s Room, all with negative results. He located Fine at Weston’s. Bob Dingle, the saloon’s major domo, told him to hold while he dug Fine out of the crowd.
The din coming over the line was most definitely that of a saloon. Live music, clinking glasses, loud voices mixed with sudden gales of laughter—he could visualize the smoke raftering the bar.
Fine’s choppy voice. “Dan, I was terribly sorry to hear about Zambrano. He is going to be missed. You all right?” Fine was shouting over the clamor.
“Jack, I need one and I need it fast.” He realized that he was shouting. His voice drifted downward. “Can you help me?”
Fine said, “If I can, you got it.”
“I want you to arrange for me to get into a television film library. I want to know all there is to know about Carter Moorehouse.”
Fine made a sound of exasperation. “Wow. Is Moorehouse involved in the Eisinger caper?”
“Maybe.”
“I have a lady-type friend who works at CBS. I will give her a call at home. She starts work at seven A.M. Likes to get a jump on the day before the place turns into Willowbrook East. I’ll call you right back. Where are you?”
“In the Squad.”
He waited for Fine to call back and confirm the appointment on Monday morning before he made the second call. He studied the telephone a long time before he finally picked it up and dialed.
It was answered on the first ring.
“Hello, Erica,” he said softly.
Her voice was strained and distant, as though she wanted to detach herself from him. “How are you, Daniel?”
“I’m all right. I miss you.” He held his breath, waiting to hear her tone of voice. Listening for the inflection.
“When were you released from whatever hospital you were in?” A cold and reserved tone, one that said, Keep your distance.
“This morning.”
“I see.” Icicles in June. “Didn’t you know how frantic I would be? I have been crying all day. I must have telephoned your rotten office a thousand times. None of your macho detectives knew anything. They never do. It’s one big chauvinistic conspiracy. I’ve broken every one of my nails and to top it off I look like shit. And you, Daniel Malone, could not spare me one lousy minute of your precious time to let me know that you were alive.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, haltingly.
“Like hell you are. The only thing that you’re sorry about is that there are not seventy-two hours in one day so that you can play at your cops-and-robbers games.”
“Erica. A cop was killed. There were many things that needed doing. Believe me, I tried to call you several times but the Job always interfered.”
“Your job is just too big for both of us. I’m sorry, Daniel. I really wanted us to make it.” She began to cry.
“Let me come over. We’ll talk.”
“No! I’m not the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type. I want more out of a relationship. You make me feel like a whore.”
He lowered his eyes and shook his head. He was wrong and he knew it. And now he was sorry. “Erica, please let me …”
“How could you have done that to me,” she cried. “Not one call. I have to feel secure in a relationship. I … I … Please don’t call me again, ever.”
A click.
He sat holding the phone and listening to the sound of the dial tone. “If you want security, marry a rent-a-cop,” he shouted at the mouthpiece. “Don’t bark up this tree.”
/> He pushed himself up out of the chair and went into the squad room. He was on his way to the coffee machine when he turned and went back into his office. He dialed her number and the line was busy. He sat on his desk and dialed over and over again. It was always busy.
He went back into the squad room and told the detective who was typing up the arrest reports on a feral youth that he was going to sack out in the dorm. “See that I get a piss call at six A.M.”
“Hi. I’m Evelyn Norton. Jack Fine told me that you would be coming my way Monday morning.”
She was thirtyish, with scalloped black hair and green eyes. A nice smile and a firm handshake. Her blouse was open just enough to make a man curious. Black skirt with side slits, and dark stockings and a man-tailored jacket. A very attractive lady.
She swept her hand toward a chair. A television set displaying a colorful test pattern was on a table next to her desk. Her fragrance reminded him of Erica.
Evelyn Norton said, “What can I do for you?”
He told her that he wanted background information on Carter Moorehouse. She picked up a pencil and leaned forward in her chair. “Can you be a bit more specific?”
“I’d like to see everything that you have on him.”
“Let me explain how our indexes work,” she said, a pleasant smile on her face. “Our film library employs several systems. We have a Personality File on the famous and infamous. A Shot Listing Index which lists specific scenes of news footage. An example would be”—she paused a second to think—“Sadat’s assassins rushing the grandstand. And we have a Line-up Book which lists the stories carried on CBS news in the sequence that they were aired. We also maintain a card index by subject and story. Everything from ’seventy-five to the present is available on CRT computer terminals, everything before ’seventy-five is still on index cards.
“So you see,” she concluded, “it would help if you could be more exact.”
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