Wells shook his head positively. “He wasn’t going to make it.”
Clancy smiled. “Do you make that statement based upon the breakout today, Mr. Wells, or based on the facts that were presented to you and the Board at the hearing?”
Wells nodded seriously, accepting the question honestly. “I understand what you mean, Lieutenant. No; he wouldn’t have made it in any event. The decision hadn’t been written, but it was more or less certain. His prison record wasn’t too good, and it wasn’t his first offense. This wasn’t raised at his trial, of course, but he had stabbed a man before—a man who had recovered, fortunately. No, he wouldn’t have made it. We try—and I know the stigma of the word, and the problems—but we try to be liberal. Fair, I suppose would be a better word. But the law, while giving certain latitude to the Board, is still fairly explicit in most cases.”
“I see. And I understand what you mean. But I’m not too interested in Williams, to tell you the truth—and even less so since he’s dead. To be honest, I’m much more interested in the case of Lenny Cervera. What about him? Would he have made it?”
Wells frowned. His fingers twisted his glass slowly as he phrased his answer. “It’s hard to say. I can’t very well speak for the Board, particularly since we haven’t even reviewed his case, yet.” His eyes came up. “Speaking for myself—and this is completely unofficial—I don’t believe his crime was the most serious in the world—”
He paused as Judge Kiele pushed himself to his feet and snorted loudly; but the judge was merely reaching for the brandy bottle. Wells shrugged at the interruption and continued.
“—and he behaved himself in prison as far as I know. But, as I say, no formal review of his case had been made as yet. Just what the decision would have been is difficult to say. And, of course, it is all theoretical, now, since he joined in a prison break.” He looked at the lieutenant. “What makes you ask?”
“Curiosity, mainly,” Clancy said reasonably. “Here we have a prison break just before he’s due for parole—or at least just before a review that could conceivably have led to his parole. That fact has struck several of us as strange. You’ve had more experience in this sort of thing than we have. I’d like your opinion as to what could have led a man in that position to break out? What could have motivated Cervera in doing it?”
“Why he broke out?” Wells nodded to himself, but it was a nod in recognition of the question, rather than of the answer. He looked up. “What do the ‘several’ of you think?”
Clancy laughed. “I should have known better than to try and trade words with a counsellor. Well, I’ll answer you anyway. My immediate boss, Captain Wise, thinks maybe he got tired of the food in prison, or that he wanted to make good his threat to get me before I die from smoking too much. He was, of course, kidding. My big boss, Inspector Clayton, thinks that when a punk like Cervera does something this idiotic, it’s time to watch out. He was certainly not kidding. Now; what do you think?”
John Wells smiled. “I might agree with your Captain Wise if I knew how much you smoked, Lieutenant. I do know that the food at Sing Sing could be better.” His smile faded. “I’ll be serious. I think your Inspector Clayton is a lot closer, but I think he misses the real point. You see, no one knows how much a man can really take of imprisonment. No one knows when some tiny hidden bug of insanity, born of a man’s innate hatred of imprisonment, and growing daily with the cumulative effects of his being caged, will break loose and destroy him—or us. It might happen the first day he’s in jail; it might wait and happen that day before he’s released. Or it might happen any time in between. Only a psychiatrist could even predict the possibility, and they usually don’t get the chance. Or it’s too late by the time they do.”
His eyes seemed to be staring at his drink, but he wasn’t actually seeing it. He was staring down the cold corridors of the penitentiary, seeing the long line of barred cells as he continued.
“In my estimation,” he said slowly, “every man has his limit. I think Cervera simply came to the end of his rope. We really never know how tough the fibers of the rope may be; or even the length of the rope, until the frayed ends slip through our fingers, and we’ve lost him. But they all have their limit, and he came to his. And for this reason I agree with your inspector that he is a dangerous man. And I consider any threat he made as warranting serious consideration.” He looked at Clancy. “I only wish you could convince my father-in-law—Judge Kiele, I mean—to accept this as fact.”
Judge Kiele snorted again. He had reseated himself during this discourse and was now holding an empty glass once again. His eyes were bright.
“What fancy words and theories for a very simple thing! No wonder your law career hasn’t been marked with startling success, John! The fact is—the true and only fact is—that a convict saw a chance to escape and took it. It’s that easy; that simple. And his rantings and ravings about killing the three of us, made three years ago, have been forgotten by him, I’ll warrant, as quickly as I forgot them myself.”
He had brought the brandy bottle back with him and placed it beside his chair; now he leaned over and poured himself another drink. When he straightened up, he went on.
“And another thing, John; I could use your own argument against you and all your fine theories. You wouldn’t have all of these crazy hopes and wild disappointments if you didn’t keep dangling the idea of parole before their noses like a carrot.”
Wells’ jaw tightened. His wife put out a tentatively restricting hand and then withdrew it. Wells spoke up.
“Do you mean you’re against parole in any form, sir?”
“If you want a straight answer, yes!” Judge Kiele glared about, inviting argument. “What is this five-years-to-ten-years nonsense? Or this life-imprisonment-plus-ninety-nine years, only you can get out in fifteen if you don’t stab another inmate or—pardon me, my dear—spit in your dish at mealtime? What results do you get? Cerveras? Or Blounts?”
His daughter and son-in-law received these words in silence; it apparently was an ancient argument between the two. Clancy pushed himself to his feet, unwilling to enter into pointless disagreements. John Wells lifted his glass in silent invitation for the lieutenant to accept a second drink, one to break the tension. Clancy shook his head.
Judge Kiele continued, speaking dully, almost to himself. “And these prosecutors who accept minor pleas, just to be assured of a conviction, mostly for political reasons.…”
Clancy cleared his throat. “I’ll be going along, sir. I have a hard day tomorrow.”
Judge Kiele looked up, shrugging. His fourth brandy seemed to have made him morose.
“All right, Lieutenant.” His very curtness seemed an apology. “Just don’t have your minions get under my feet. I have a campaign to run, and a damned important radio speech to make.” His eyes stared at the waiting man broodingly. “Makes a man feel like a fool.…”
Clancy nodded; his good-by included the silent daughter. He turned toward the door, accompanied by John Wells. The butler, appearing from nowhere—or more likely, the kitchen—was mysteriously waiting with the battered felt hat and limp raincoat held at finger tips. Clancy took the garments absently, putting the hat on and squaring it. John Wells reached out, opening the front door for him.
“He’s not always like this,” he said apologetically. “I think he’s more upset by the breakout and the threats than he wants to admit. And this campaign is on his mind, too. You’ll maintain the guard on him?”
“We’ll maintain it,” Clancy promised, and shook the firm hand.
He stood at the elevator, pressing the button, waiting for the sleek monster to appear and swallow him, and shoot him downward at its incredible speed. In his mind’s eye he could see the white-haired man slumped in his easy chair, brandy in hand, staring into nowhere. Makes a man feel like a fool, does it? he thought. Well, it should, because you are. And a stubborn fool at that.
The door of the elevator slid open without audible warning, and he s
tepped inside. And then paused to smile at himself as he remembered his own feelings when Captain Wise had given him the same warning. Fools come in all sizes, he thought, but they’re no less fools for that. His smile faded at the sad thought and he walked out across the damp, limp rug to the tear-stained street beyond.
CHAPTER THREE
Wednesday—1:15 A.M.
The shrill ringing of the telephone brought Clancy washing lazily up from the subterranean depths of sleep, dragging him back to the conscious world in little stages, one step for each prolonged ring, like a deep-sea diver being decompressed. He lay for a moment, adjusting to consciousness, eyes squinting at a ceiling lost in a black void somewhere overhead, and then rolled over, succumbing to a tremendous yawn. His hand fumbled on the nightstand, finally encountering the telephone.
“Yes? Hello?”
“Lieutenant, this is Kaproski.” There was deep unhappiness in the voice, and a slight touch of apology. “I hate like hell to wake you up at this hour, but—”
Clancy reached up and managed to find the switch for the small lamp on the nightstand; he pressed it, blinked at the sudden glare, and stared at the revealed face of the clock. For the sweet sake of gentle Jesus Christ! He brought the receiver back to his ear with a jerk, scowling at it “What’s the matter?”
There was an embarrassed pause at the other end of the line; and then an audibly deep breath. “It’s the Hernandez girl, Lieutenant …” Kaproski swallowed. “She’s dead.…”
“What!” Clancy swung his feet to the floor, bending over the telephone fiercely, trying to will himself more widely awake, to comprehend the full implications of Kaproski’s words. He tried to think. “Where are you calling from?”
“Bellevue. We brought her here.”
“Hold it a second, Kap.”
Clancy set the telephone down carefully and padded unsteadily into the bathroom. He splashed cold water on his face and wiped a few of the drops off with one hand, not bothering to dry with a towel. As he came back to the bed the chill evening breeze, playing across his damp face, drove away the last remnants of sleepiness. He dragged his arm roughly across his face, drying it on his pajama sleeve, and dropped down on the bed again. He picked up the telephone.
“All right, Kap. Start at the beginning. What happened?”
Kaproski took another deep breath. “Well, like you told me, Lieutenant, I went back across the street after I finished talking to you, and I caught the technical boys before they finished hooking the tap up to the tape recorder. They had it in an old empty locker down in the basement of the joint; the superintendent was there, watching, but they sent him away after telling him to keep his mouth shut. Anyways, they left earphones for me, and they finally finished up. I figured as long as she wasn’t home yet, and I could see the place from the joint across the street, I had time for a sandwich, so I went back to the bar—”
Clancy’s voice interrupted, tight and ominous. “And while you were gone …!”
“No, sir, Lieutenant. It wasn’t nothing like that. It’s just that I’m giving it to you from the beginning, like you asked for. Anyways, I went over there and ate, and then I went back to the basement locker and I started to listen.
“Well, the phone rings three, four times—I mean she gets three or four incoming calls—but of course since she ain’t there, she don’t answer. And I figure maybe she went away for a week or something, vacation maybe, and I should have asked the superintendent, but I hadn’t, and just then the phone lifts and somebody starts to dial. I guess she must have just got home, because it turned out to be her—”
“And how would you know?”
Kaproski, at the other end, was mystified. “From she was calling Lenny’s mother, of course.…”
Clancy sighed. “O.K. What time was this?”
“Ten-twenty-six. On the button.”
“Where was Selman during all this? The patrolman who was assigned to the front?”
“When I come in he was on the corner, about three apartments down. I guess he must have still been there.”
“Which reminds me,” Clancy said slowly. “Did you two have a picture of her for identity?”
Kaproski was insulted at the insinuation. “Well sure, Lieutenant. I picked one up before I left the precinct.” He hesitated. “I don’t know about Selman …”
“Great,” Clancy said. He shook his head. “All right. Go ahead. I suppose it doesn’t make much difference now, anyway.” He reached for a pack of cigarettes, managed to pull one free with one hand, and lit it. He laid it down temporarily on the edge of the nightstand and reached back, dragging a blanket around his shoulders.
“Well, she’s calling this Mrs. Cervera, Lenny’s mother, and I figure that’s a laugh, me and Stanton both listening to the same talk at the same time, but anyways they don’t say anything to each other that’s of any help that I can see. This Hernandez girl is all wound up, and she keeps saying why did Lenny do it, and she starts to cry and all that, but the old lady—jeez! You would have thought her boy Lenny won first prize at Sunday school to hear her talk, instead of having every cop in the country on his tail for a real big rap. All the old lady keeps saying is don’t worry, Lenny is a good boy, and a whole lot of goop like that. Personally, if you ask me, I think the shock of this here thing has scrambled whatever brains the old lady ever had.…”
“There wasn’t any other reference to Lenny? Any indication that he had been in touch with them in any way? Nothing that could give us a lead to the punk?”
“Not a thing. Or anyways, nothing I could see unless they was talking in code. It’s all on the tape, Lieutenant; you can check. But wait—let me finish. After they finally hang up on each other there ain’t a sound out of the phone for well over an hour. I was figuring on putting it back on automatic and going home for some shut-eye when all of a sudden—it was twelve-o-eight on the button—she gets another call. She must have been practically sitting on the phone, because she answers it after just one ring, and this time it’s a man on the phone, and he …” He paused to clear his throat.
“Well, damn it!” Clancy said viciously. “Tell it!” He crushed out his cigarette and immediately lit another.
“Yeah, Lieutenant. Sure. Well, this guy sounds all muffled up, like he had a bad cold, or else a face full of mush, and he says—and this is almost word for word—he says:
“‘Is this Marcia?’
“And she says, getting excited like, ‘Yes. Who’s this?’
“And he says, ‘Listen, don’t talk any more. Just keep your mouth shut and your ears open. I’ll do all the talking for the both of us. I’m calling to give you a message from an old friend of yours. He wants to see you. Right away.’
“And she says, ‘Where?’
“And this guy says, still all muffled up, ‘Damn it, I told you not to talk! Just listen! He says he wants to meet you at a place he says you’ll remember. He says it’s the place where you two first met.…’
“And she starts to say, ‘But—’ But this guy has already hung up.
“Well, I’m in a sweat. I don’t have time to go up and see if I can get in touch with Selman, because I want to hang onto the earphones for at least a little while in case she makes another call because of the one she got; but still I want to be ready to follow her when she sets out to meet Cervera, because I know damn well that’s who’s calling. And I’m off in a corner of this damned basement, and I don’t know if she’s got to get dressed, or what. I figure the only thing I can do is trail her and try to get Selman to follow with some help, and I don’t even know if Selman is still on duty, because it’s after midnight. I figure if worse comes to worse I’ll have to try and take the punk alone.”
He took a deep breath and went on. “Anyways, I sit with the earphones on for maybe another thirty seconds, and then I figure I better make tracks. And even then I damn near waited too long, because she was already going out the front door by the time I got up to the hall, because the hall is a long one and
the stairs to the basement come up at the back and she’s going out the front. I held back a second until she went through the door, because I don’t want to tip her off, and anyways at that hour in that neighborhood there ain’t nobody around, and I figured it shouldn’t be too hard keeping an eye on her, and then …”
Kaproski had come to a complete stop. Clancy could almost anticipate the rest of the story. His voice was quiet. “Go on.”
“Well, I was still in the lobby, or the foyer I guess you’d call it. I could see her through the glass part of the door; she was just starting across the street. And then this car came out of nowhere—damn fool didn’t have his lights on, and he was going like a bat out of hell. She never knew what hit her. She didn’t even have time to scream. By the time I got out through those goddamned doors the bastard that hit her was around the corner and long gone. She was laying half on the street and half on the far sidewalk; it must have been fifty feet from where he hit her. And she was a mess. Christ!”
Clancy drew deeply on his cigarette. He laid it down and dragged the blanket across his shoulders more tightly. “Any other traffic around? Or any people?”
“Not a soul.”
“What about Selman?”
“He must have gone off at midnight. There was a third-grade from one of the other precincts having a cup of coffee in the bar where he could keep an eye on the place, and he came popping out, but he didn’t see any more than I did. Or even less.”
Clancy swore under his breath. “Didn’t either one of you see anything of this car?”
“Nathanson, this third-grade, didn’t see anything. All I could see was that it was black, or maybe it just looked black because it went by so fast. I couldn’t tell how many was in it, or if they were men, women, or children.” Kaproski’s voice was bitter. “Well, anyways, there’s a call box there and so we called the boys up here with an ambulance, but that was a waste of time. She’s down here on a slab with a DOA on her big toe, and believe me, Lieutenant, she ain’t pretty.”
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