by Ed McBain
“In that case,” Bozzaris said, “the arraigning magistrate may wish to set bail for you since this is your first offense. So what we’ll do is take you downtown to be mugged and printed, and then you’ll go over to the Criminal Courts Building where you’ll be arraigned and a date for your trial will be set. Do you have anything to say before you go?”
“Yes, but I would like to tell it to you in confidence,” Mullaney said, “if you promise to respect the confidence.”
“I will most certainly respect the confidence,” Bozzaris said.
Mullaney walked to the desk and bent over it. He stepped carefully to Bozzaris’ left, so that Bozzaris had to lean over slightly, his hand moving away from the pad upon which he had scribbled the horse’s name. Mullaney put his mouth close to the lieutenant’s ear, and then glanced swiftly at the penciled lettering on the pad:
“I’m innocent,” Mullaney whispered.
“Be that as it may,” Bozzaris said.
The name Jawbone was blinking on and off inside Mullaney’s skull as he was led to the door and out of the office, letters ten feet high, JAWBONE, jawbone, JAWBONE, jawbone, the nag who was supposed to have run in the fourth race yesterday, apparently scratched—according to Harrison, Randolph, age twenty-six—and running today instead, twenty to one on the morning line. If that jacket at the library could really tell him where to find the five hundred thousand dollars, and if Aqueduct would take all the money he could bet in the half hour between races—Mullaney was so lost in thanking God for the good fortune that had caused him to get arrested, so lost in counting the profit he would make on that wonderful marvelous horse Jawbone, that he scarcely realized he was being led with the other prisoners into a police van and taken downtown to 100 Centre Street, where they were photographed and fingerprinted, JAWBONE, jawbone, JAWBONE, and then marched across the street for arraignment. The presiding magistrate was a man who looked like Spencer Tracy in Judgment at Nuremburg. Apparently thinking Mullaney was Heinrich Himmler, he sternly read the charge against him and asked whether Mullaney understood it. Mullaney said he did. The judge then asked Mullaney how he chose to plead, and Mullaney said, “Not guilty.” The judge then asked him whether or not he could afford a lawyer because if he couldn’t the court would supply one from the Legal Aid Society, but Mullaney said he would find his own lawyer, thanking the judge just the same, and having in mind Marvin Pitkin who had done so well for Feinstein before his comical demise. The judge then told Mullaney that he personally considered First Degree Burglary a heinous crime since it involved the violation of a man’s sanctum sanctorum, the breaking and entering into his home of homes, his dwelling place, in the night time, all of which sounded very familiar to Mullaney and almost put him to sleep. Because of the serious nature of the crime, the judge said, he was going to set an extremely high bail for a first offense, and that bail would be five hundred dollars. Mullaney was about to tell the judge that meeting such a bail was an impossibility, when a voice at the back of the courtroom said, “I’ll pay this man’s bail, your Honor.”
“Your name, sir?” the judge asked.
“Arthur Purcell, your Honor,” the voice from the rear of the courtroom said.
Mullaney turned and saw Purcell—a blond, pleasant-looking man of about thirty-three, wearing a grey suit, white shirt and black tie—walking toward the front of the courtroom. The judge told him to settle things with the bailiff, and Purcell immediately went to the right-hand side of the courtroom where someone, presumably the bailiff, was sitting behind a desk covered with rubber stamps and inked pads, and officially banging away at all the documents spread before him. Mullaney saw Purcell reaching into his back pants pocket for a wallet, and then the judge cleared his throat and Mullaney turned toward the bench again. The judge informed him that he was expected to appear in court on May seventeenth, and that if he did not appear on that date, the bail would be forfeited and a warrant issued for his arrest. He asked Mullaney whether or not he understood that. Mullaney said that he understood it completely. Very well, the judge said, you are released on five hundred dollars bail until the seventeenth of May, try to stay out of trouble until then. Mullaney assured the judge that he would try very hard to stay out of trouble, meanwhile thinking of the jacket in the library and of how many tickets on Jawbone he could buy and of how he would spend the money plus all of his winnings on a life of romantic adventure in Monaco, Rio de Janeiro or perhaps even Jakarta. Purcell fell into step beside him as he walked toward the leather-padded doors at the rear of the courtroom.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Purcell,” Mullaney said. “I certainly appreciate your generosity and kindness.”
“Don’t thank me,” Purcell said, and held the door open for Mullaney to precede him into the marble corridor.
“Who should I thank?” Mullaney asked, and immediately saw K standing by the corridor window.
K no longer wore his torn and tattered rags of the night before. Instead, he was dressed in a freshly pressed blue suit. He looked very grim, if extremely neat, the small gold K still holding his tie in place. He beckoned to Mullaney, and Mullaney figured there was no sense arguing with him now, especially since Purcell had a rather large and unsightly bulge on the left-hand side of his coat, which could not have been caused by his wallet because Mullaney remembered that he kept his wallet in the back pocket of his trousers. He also remembered that K had put a hole in his jasmine shirt the night before (something for which he would never entirely forgive him). Someone—probably Feinstein—had once taught him never to argue with gentlemen who were heeled, so he decided to chat instead and desperately searched for an opening conversational gambit that might possibly eradicate the very grim look K—and now even Purcell—was wearing.
“I heard you were dead,” Mullaney said at last.
“No, I am alive,” K assured him.
“I see that.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a very nice suit.”
“Thank you. It was made for me by the same person who tailored your burial garments.”
“Oh,” Mullaney said.
“Yes. Which brings up a small matter …”
“You weren’t dressed nearly as well last night,” Mullaney said.
“That’s because I was in an automobile accident and then was forced to make my way through the brambles and bushes lining the parkway in order to avoid getting killed by the people who had engineered the accident.”
“I see,” Mullaney said.
“Yes. Some people by the name of Adolph Kruger and his fellows, with whom I understand you have become acquainted.”
“I didn’t know his name was Adolph,” Mullaney said.
“Well, there is oft ignorance afoot,” K quoted, “but it neither dims nor extinguishes the true light.”
“I’m sure,” Mullaney said.
“About the jacket …”
“But on the other hand …”
“… Roger McReady tells me that you know where the jacket is, and that …”
“… on the other hand, there is oft true light afoot, but it neither dims nor extinguishes the ignorance.”
“On the other hand,” K said, “people have oft had their heads broken for not listening to reason and answering questions that have been put to them.”
“What was the question?” Mullaney asked.
“The question was: Where’s the jacket?”
Mullaney suddenly remembered that he was inside a courthouse (a sign over the entrance doors advised him that this was PART IA, and a second sign on a metal stand to the left of the doors read JUDGE LUTHER HORTON PRESIDING) and further remembered that this was a criminal courthouse. It was then that he noticed how many policemen of every stripe were swarming all over this second-floor corridor, and wondered whether K or Purcell would risk shooting at him with so many uniformed minions of the law abounding, not to mention untold invisible plainclothesmen. How could they risk shooting, how could they even risk giving chase?
�
��Why should I tell you where the jacket is?” Mullaney asked, stalling while he made his decision. He didn’t feel like running again (he had been doing so goddamn much running lately), but neither did he feel like getting shot at again, or even hit on the head again.
“You should tell us where the jacket is,” K said logically and smoothly and calmly, “because if you do, I will induce Mr. McReady to drop the criminal charges against you, which charges—as you may or may not know—could lead to at least ten years in a state penitentiary.”
“Yes, I know that,” Mullaney said, thinking furiously. “But what’s so important about that jacket?”
“Let us say it has sentimental value,” K said.
“Let us say bullshit,” Mullaney said.
“Mr. Mullaney,” K said, “the possibility also exists that we will kill you if you do not tell us where the jacket is. Have you weighed that possibility?”
“Yes,” Mullaney said, thinking Why, I don’t have to run at all! All I have to do is turn swiftly and economically and begin walking toward the elevator bank in the middle of the corridor. “I have weighed the possibility,” he said, “and I’ve decided you can’t lay a finger on me.”
He smiled politely, and would have tipped his hat if he were wearing one. Then he turned swiftly on his heel and began walking as fast as he could toward the elevators. Behind him, K and Purcell held a hurried, whispered consultation, and then immediately began walking after him, as fast as they could without attracting the attention of any of the corridor policemen. Mullaney reached the elevator bank just as the doors on one of the cars were closing. He walked in swiftly, caught a quick glimpse of K and Purcell just before the doors closed, heard another elevator operator in another car shout “Down!” and realized they would not be very far behind him when he reached the street floor. His heart was pounding, and his hands were sweating, but he stood very calmly in the midst of lawyers and clients and policemen and bailiffs and judges while the car dropped soundlessly in its shaft. Ignoring the several ladies present, he stepped out of the car before them the moment it stopped, and walked rapidly toward the entrance doors and the street. He did not look back at the building until he had reached the corner of Leonard Street, and then he turned and saw K and Purcell bounding down the steps. The horses are on the track, Mullaney thought, trying to sound like Freddie Capossela in his mind, It is now post time. He took a deep breath, said aloud, “They’re off!” and began running.
It was a nice day for a run.
If a fellow has to run, Mullaney thought, he certainly couldn’t wish for a nicer day than this one. He could remember fishing for blue crabs one night off a Fire Island dock, Irene luring the crabs in with a flashlight and he scooping them up into a net before it began raining. They had run that night because the rain was suddenly upon them in torrents and they were positive they could be drowned just standing still on the dock. The house they had rented for the month of August was at the far end of the boardwalk, adjacent to Saltaire, and they were both barefoot and afraid they would pick up wood splinters, neither of them dressed for the sudden summer storm, there had been stars and a moon in the sky when they’d begun their solitary crabbing. But they ran nonetheless into the pelting rain and were drenched within minutes. And then, suddenly, there was no point in running any longer, they were both as wet as they ever would be. So they said the hell with it, and joined hands and idly ambled up the boardwalk, laughing and singing, and waking at least two irate neighbors who shouted for quiet, thereby waking at least two more. They were wet to the marrow when they finally reached the house, shivering on the front porch while Mullaney tried to extricate the key from the sodden pocket of his dungaree trousers. They each drank a shot of medicinal brandy, and Mullaney lighted a fire in the old fireplace, filling the house with smoke that sent them out laughing into the rain again.
He could remember that night’s running with great pleasure, and he wondered now whether they hadn’t done the very sensible thing, whether it wasn’t advisable to stop running when you really had nothing further to lose, and realized that what he had to lose right now was his life, and tried again to understand what was so terribly important about that jacket lying in the stacks of the New York Public Library, and couldn’t. He knew he should hurry back there to pick it up before someone found it, but he also knew he could not go there with K and Purcell in hot pursuit. So he kept running east, away from the library, coming out into Chinatown, and then continuing eastward and northward until he hit Houston Street, and then running past the pushcarts and the dry-goods stores and the catering places and the delicatessens, and looking behind him to see that K and Purcell were still with him, closer than they were before. He was convinced that they would get him now. For the first time since last night in McReady’s cottage, when he thought he was looking at K’s ghost, he knew fear—fear that this would be the end of everything, the end of all hope, he would not escape them, he would be unable to circle uptown to the library to claim the jacket and unlock its secret, he would never place his monstrous bet on Jawbone or flee to Rio or Jakarta where dusky sloe-eyed maidens would drop grapes into his mouth—all at once the man with the beard stepped into his path.
The man had black beetling brows and burning black eyes. His beard was wild and unkempt, black too, he was dressed entirely in black except for a white handkerchief knotted cowboy-fashion around his neck, black coat, black hat, black shoes, black socks, Mullaney’s fear rocketed into his skull. Behind him he could hear K and Purcell rounding the corner, It’s an international ring, he thought, there’s no escape, there’s no goddamn escape, they’ve got me surrounded.
The man clutched Mullaney’s arm and leaned closer.
He’ll kill me, Mullaney thought. He’ll kill me on the spot and take my head to K.
“Are you Jewish?” the man asked.
“Yes!” Mullaney shouted, hoping he would pass.
“Good,” the man said. “We need you for a minyen.”
9. SOLOMON
He heard footseps clattering on the sidewalk outside as the synagogue door whispered shut behind him.
“This way!” K’s voice shouted.
“Where is he?” Purcell shouted. “Where did he go?”
“This way! This way!”
He leaned against the closed door with his eyes shut, breathing hard, listening as the footsteps faded, echoing on the street, “Where did he go?” Purcell shouted again.
Mullaney opened his eyes.
The bearded man was studying him closely.
“The goyim?” he asked, and because he sensed that goyim meant enemy, and since K and Purcell were most certainly that, Mullaney nodded, and sucked in a deep breath. Both men were silent, listening. The voices outside were indistinct now, distant. K shouted something, but the words were unintelligible. They kept listening. At last, the street outside was silent. The bearded man smiled, his grin cracking into his black beard, as white as the handkerchief knotted around his neck. He beckoned to Mullaney, and Mullaney followed him down the long flight of steps just inside the entrance door.
He had been in a synagogue only once before in his life, and that had been for Feinstein’s funeral services, a very classy synagogue befitting his station in life. The underground temple in which he found himself now was small and dim, with two high windows at street level, and another two opening on what appeared to be the brick wall of the tenement next door. Three dozen or more folding wooden chairs faced what he assumed to be the altar, a carved wooden stand upon which rested a candelabra holding six lighted candles. Behind the altar was what Mullaney first thought was a picture, and then realized was another small window, stained glass, set very high up on the wall, also at street level. He could not tell what the window depicted; it seemed to be only an interesting design of blues and greens behind which were darker blues and blacks pierced by a yellow pane of glass that descended vertically from the top of the window. To the right of the window, and almost on the same level, a candle—or at le
ast a flame—flickered in a small metal cage that hung from the ceiling on a brass chain. A pair of red velvet curtains were on the wall below and behind the hanging cage, and a rack on the adjoining wall was draped with what appeared to be fringed silk scarves.
“I’m Goldman,” the man with the beard said abruptly and handed a black skullcap to Mullaney, who held it on his open hands and looked up into Goldman’s face.
“And your name?” Goldman said.
“Mullaney,” he said.
“Come, Melinsky, you’ll meet the others.”
“Mullaney,” he corrected.
“Come, take a tallis, we’ve been waiting here all morning. To get a minyen in this neighborhood, you have to have a big shining temple. Come, Melinsky, come.”
“Mr. Goldman …”
“This is Melinsky,” Goldman said to the other men in the room. “Solomon, get him a Siddur, let’s begin here.”
The other men—there seemed to be six or seven, or perhaps more—were rather old, some of them bearded, some of them bald, most of them wrinkled. They were standing before the rack of silk scarves, all of which were identical, white and striped with the palest blue, fringed with long white knotted tassels. As Mullaney watched, the men began taking scarves from the long wooden rack bar, and draping them over their shoulders. He suddenly knew that they were prayer shawls, not scarves, and further knew he could not go on with this hoax.
“Mr. Goldman …” he started, but Goldman turned away from him and began walking toward the front of the temple.
“You have to yell at him,” a voice at his elbow said. “He’s a little deaf.”
Mullaney turned at the sound of the voice, and then looked down to find a short old man wearing a white skullcap perched on the back of his bald head. The man was smiling, his mouth was smiling, his eyes were smiling behind thick-lensed rimless spectacles. He had a tiny mustache that echoed the white of the prayer shawl draped over his shoulders. His suit was brown, and he wore a brown tie and a yellow sweater under his jacket. He extended his hand.