Kaproski looked over at the animated face of his superior. “Good news, Lieutenant?”
“Yeah,” Clancy said with profound satisfaction. “I think maybe pretty soon I can go back to sleeping in my own bed.…”
Friday—10:45 A.M.
Stanton was waiting patiently in Clancy’s office, relieving his boredom by flipping paper clips into the wastebasket from as far across the room as he could, which—in Clancy’s office—was not very far. So do the taxpayers of New York pay for departmental office supplies.… He had raised his arm and poised it carefully, preparatory to making a bull’s-eye, when Clancy came into the office, walking fast. Stanton depressed his arm, looked at the paper clip a moment and then slipped it into his jacket pocket as unobtrusively as he could.
Clancy dropped his hat and coat on a corner of the desk, significant in itself, and swung on Stanton before the larger man was even prepared for the question.
“Trenton, eh?”
Stanton stared at him. “What, Lieutenant?”
“I asked you where they met—Marcia and Lenny.”
Stanton would have liked to withdraw his notebook from his pocket for reference in standard fashion, but he knew the answer, of course, and he also knew that Clancy knew he knew it. He also sensed that this was no time for delay. “Ronkonkoma, Lieutenant. Lake Ronkonkoma, up on the Island. There was this picnic, see.…”
“The same thing,” Clancy said with quiet triumph. “Ronkonkoma or Trenton—the same thing.” He dropped into his chair without attempting to explain to Stanton why the upper part of Long Island and the lower part of New Jersey were similar. “Kap …!”
Kaproski came hurrying in from the corridor, recognizing the tone. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Is Gomez around?”
Kaproski nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Clancy stared at him. “Well, don’t just stand there! Get him!”
Kaproski started. “Oh. Sure, Lieutenant.” He hustled out into the hallway again. Clancy dragged out a cigarette and lit it, waiting for Kaproski to return with Gomez, reviewing the details in his mind. The two came in and lined up with Stanton before his desk, crowding the small office. Clancy nodded to himself in satisfaction and then looked up, his eyes bright.
“Boys, we’ve got work to do. Gomez, you’re going down to the license bureau, and then—if you find what I think you’ll find—you’re going to start visiting automobile dealers.…” He crushed out his cigarette and reached for a pencil, continuing to talk as he did so. The three men stared at him in amazement but made no comment. He scribbled some notes on a piece of paper and slid it across the desk. Gomez looked at it; his eyebrows went up as he read it.
“I don’t understand, Lieutenant.”
“You don’t have to understand. Just check out this information. And call in as soon as you find anything. Or even if you find nothing.” He swung around. “Stan, you and Kap are going up to Ossining.…” He spoke for several minutes more, and again scribbled some notes on a piece of paper, pushing it across the desk. “Copies of hotel registrations, and of phone calls, if you can get them.…”
Stanton glanced down at the paper; he frowned and then nodded slowly. “If they still have them, Lieutenant.…”
“They’ll have them,” Clancy said with a confidence he was far from feeling. “Or at least let’s hope so. The phone company lists almost every call, nowadays.”
“But, Lieutenant,” Kaproski said protestingly, “I got to stick with you. Captain Wise—”
“I’ll handle Captain Wise,” Clancy said evenly. “You just do what I finished telling you.”
“But—”
“I’ll lock the door and sit here with a milk bottle in one hand,” Clancy said with withering scorn. “Look—if you can’t figure out by now that you can’t do any good here, then either I’ve been wasting my time talking, or you haven’t been listening.”
Kaproski looked at him. “Yeah.… That’s if you’re guessing right, Lieutenant.…”
“I’m not guessing,” Clancy said. “Now get going. And Stan, call in from Ossining. I don’t want to have to wait until you get back to get this information.”
“Right, Lieutenant.”
The three men filed from the room. Clancy reached over for the pile of reports in the in basket, brought them to the center of the desk, and began reading them carefully, seeing in them a different significance in view of his new idea. He read each report twice, slid them to one side, and dug out the previous days’ reports, reading them with equal intensity. When he finished he placed them to one side and pulled his pad closer, picking up his pencil, twiddling it a moment in thought, his eyes lost in some speculation that prevented him from seeing the scratched filing cabinets he was staring at. And then he began to write.…
The clock ticked quietly, relentlessly. Twice Gomez called; each time. Clancy nodded at the information he received, made some notes on his pad, gave further instructions, and returned to his work. At one o’clock he realized he was hungry, sent out for a sandwich, some buttermilk, and another pack of cigarettes, but the first bite of the sandwich convinced him he hadn’t been hungry after all. At two o’clock Stanton called the first time, his voice excited as he related his find. Clancy marked it down, gave further instructions and returned to work. At three o’clock an elderly Western Union messenger appeared, obviously none too pleased to be delivering messages to a police precinct, and was directed to Clancy’s office where he handed over an envelope with nothing but Clancy’s name and the precinct address on it. He stood on one foot, sneering to himself at the obvious poverty of the City as exemplified by the furnishings of the office, while Clancy slit the envelope open, read the message carefully, and then tipped him far more than he had ever expected from a public servant, and especially a lieutenant of police.
Porky Frank had, as usual, come through in fine style. Clancy nodded his head in satisfaction and went back to proving his case—on paper, at least.
Friday—4:15 P.M.
The clatter of Captain Wise’s large feet drumming down the rickety staircase of the precinct brought Clancy’s eyes up from his papers; the captain burst into the doorway, struggling to draw on his topcoat even as he moved.
“Clancy! Let’s go!”
“What’s up?”
“Blount! They just picked him up! He’s down at Centre Street.…”
Clancy had come to his feet at the first word. He rolled up his papers, thrust them into his pocket, and swept his hat and coat from the corner of the desk in the same motion.
“Bingo!” Clancy said happily, and followed Captain Wise down the narrow hallway. The captain checked his stride for a moment, speaking over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he said. “Except for the meshuga Cervera.…”
Clancy said nothing, but trotted down the steps after the captain. A squad car was waiting at the curb; the two men ducked into the back as the driver swung into traffic, siren screaming. Captain Wise suddenly seemed to wake up.
“Where’s Kaproski?” he asked.
“Wasting his time,” Clancy said with a broad grin.
“Wasting his time?”
“Yeah,” Clancy said. “Him and Stanton and Gomez. All wasting their time. You see, I didn’t know that Blount would be picked up.…” And he leaned back against the soft upholstery, his dark eyes gleaming.
CHAPTER NINE
Friday—4:30 P.M.
Hector Lionel Blount had been picked up in the most mundane manner imaginable.
A third-grade detective, Dave Feinberg, off duty and on his way home to his wife, had the misfortune to discover he was out of cigarettes while he stood at a street corner waiting for a bus. He had been reading the afternoon paper, folded over New York fashion to enable one hand to do the job, and had unconsciously reached into his pocket with the other for a cigarette, and encountered nothing. He stopped and thought. Places to obtain cigarettes were plentiful here, but if he caught his bus and went home, he would either have to walk
three blocks to a candy store—a block and a half each way from the closest bus stop—or have to make do with a pipe until morning, which was unthinkable. Not to mention the fact that his wife, who had been nagging him for months to give up smoking, would jump at the opportunity to tell him that since he had no cigarettes on hand, the perfect hour for giving up the filthy habit had arrived.…
On the other hand, if he ducked into a bar here to buy cigarettes, he stood an excellent chance of missing his bus, and it would be at least fifteen minutes more until another one marked for his destination came along. It was a hard decision, and unluckily for Blount, Dave Feinberg decided in favor of chancing the missing of his bus. He calculated that the editorials he had been reading, together with the obituaries, would occupy a large part of the fifteen minutes even if he did miss the bus.
Third-grade Detective Feinberg, therefore, tucked his newspaper under his arm, checked his change to see if he had the requirements of the machine he knew was within, and walked into the nearest bar. The cigarette machine was in the rear, standing flat-footedly as a modest barrier between the Men’s and the Ladies’, and he made his way back through the gloom, his fingers automatically separating coins in his pocket.
Blount was sitting in the third booth to the right, and Detective Feinberg—from a habit that was so ingrained that he did it without conscious thought—stared at the faces he passed as he walked to the rear. He came to the machine, dug out a quarter and a dime, and then froze. He laid his newspaper carefully on top of the cigarette machine, loosened his topcoat to allow free play for any necessary action, and slowly retraced his steps.
At the third booth, which was now on his left, he swung in. There was a service revolver in one hand as he confronted the startled man sitting there with a beer in his hand. Detective Feinberg’s other hand held a pair of handcuffs. Blount had gone white at the confrontation, but he came quietly enough. It took a moment to convince the other customers, as well as the owner, that this was indeed a legitimate arrest; and then Blount was on his way.
A search of the wanted man while they were waiting for the patrol car disclosed a gun, but it might as well have been a pretzel for all the good it had done him. A pretzel, as a matter of fact, would have proven much more useful, because it was actually many hours before anyone got around to offering Blount any food.…
Friday—5:05 P.M.
The main hallway of the Centre Street Headquarters was in confusion as Clancy and Captain Wise pushed through the heavy doors and entered. Newspapermen were milling about; they immediately attempted to block Captain Wise’s path, but the heavy-set captain shouldered his way past them to the desk, bent over, and got the information he wanted regarding the location of the interrogation room. He motioned to Clancy with his head and the two men turned down a corridor, the newspapermen strung out behind. A familiar face suddenly appeared before Clancy; he stopped, dragging Captain Wise back with one hand, and faced the man. His voice was harsh.
“Quinleven! What are you doing here?”
Quinleven jerked his head. “I’m still covering our boy.…”
Clancy swung around; Roy Kirkwood was pushing his way through the crowd at the door of the interrogation room. Clancy’s jaw hardened; he jammed his way through the mob, grasping Kirkwood by the arm and jerking in no easy manner. The other turned, mouth open, but Clancy manhandled him away from the group and into a relatively quiet haven against one wall.
“Kirkwood—what do you think you’re doing?”
“They got Blount in there,” Kirkwood said, his voice deadly. “He’ll know where Cervera is. I want to go in there and talk to him.” He took a deep breath, bringing himself under control, trying to speak easily. “After all, Clancy, I’m from the D.A.’s office.”
“You know better than that,” Clancy said. “The D.A. will be in on it soon enough.…”
Kirkwood dropped the pose. “Let me talk to him,” he said, his voice chilling in its intensity. “I’ll make him tell where Cervera is.…”
Clancy looked down the hall. A few feet below them a door led to an office. Still holding Kirkwood tightly by the arm Clancy marched to the door and swung it open. He drew Kirkwood inside; Quinleven and Captain Wise, both puzzled, followed. Clancy closed the door and looked around; two patrolmen, working at desks, looked up in surprise at the intrusion; then, recognizing their visitors they sat back, watching the scene with curiosity.
Clancy swung Kirkwood around, stepped close, and ran his hands with expert speed over the other’s body. He reached into Kirkwood’s jacket pocket, extracted a revolver, and slipped it into his own.
“You’re not very smart, are you, Roy?”
Kirkwood’s face darkened ominously. “That gun’s mine. I have a license for it.”
“And I have a license to take it away from you,” Clancy said coldly. He turned to Quinleven. “He stays right here, see? Until we get through in there. Is that understood?”
Quinleven nodded, his eyes clear and icy. “He’ll be here when you want him, Lieutenant.”
“Fine,” Clancy said. He turned to Captain Wise who had been watching the scene with a frown. “Come on, Sam—we’re missing the show.…”
They walked from the office, closing the door behind them, and crossed the hall to the interrogation room. The patrolman on the outside of the room opened the door for them and they slipped inside; a flashbulb exploded behind them as the door swung shut.
They entered to face a tableau: Blount was sitting on a hard chair in the middle of the room, Inspector Clayton was lounging easily on the corner of a desk facing him. Feinberg, the arresting officer, and Lieutenant Bill Lundberg of the Bomb Squad stood along one wall, eschewing the chairs there. A uniformed patrolman moved back across the doorway as the two men entered. Seated in an armchair on the far side of the desk was a stenotypist, his machine set on its spindly legs before him.
Clancy’s eyes went to the criminal. He was a man in his early forties, Clancy judged, with a rocklike face, heavily lined between the nostrils and the ends of his thin lips, and with a widow’s peak of dark hair beginning to gray at the temples. His shirt collar was open; the tendons in his neck stood out; a strong and tough boy, Clancy calculated.
Captain Wise laid his topcoat on a chair and moved forward to stand beside the inspector.
“What’s he got to say for himself?”
Inspector Clayton’s eyes never left the rigid face of the seated man. “He doesn’t know a thing. Not a thing.” He directed his next words to the sullen mask of the prisoner’s face. “Let’s try it all over again. Where’s Cervera?”
Blount looked at him with a poker face. “I don’t have no idea.”
“Who engineered the breakout?”
“I don’t have no idea.”
“You don’t know?” The inspector’s voice indicated his complete surprise. “You mean you just happened to be passing by at the time and thought you’d join in just for fun?”
“That’s right,” Blount said with no expression at all. “I was just passing by and I figured I’d join in for the fun of it.”
Captain Wise bent down. He stared at the tough-looking face with a face that was twice as tough-looking. “How would you like to get a fistful of knuckles right across that fat, smart lip of yours?”
Blount’s expression didn’t change in any way. Nor did he answer. He stared at Captain Wise a moment and then moved his eyes back to Inspector Clayton’s face.
Inspector Clayton sighed and then nodded. “You know that Hughes, the cop you blasted up in Ossining, is dead, don’t you? You know what that means, Blount. Even if the other killings in this thing couldn’t be pinned on you, that one is enough. You’re going to the electric chair, and you know it. Why not spill? Where’s Lenny Cervera?”
“I don’t have no idea.”
Lundberg pushed himself away from the wall and walked over, getting into the act. “How long you been in the city, Blount?”
Blount stared at him. “Long enough
.”
“What did you come down here for? Little dangerous for you, wasn’t it? With all those woods north of Albany, clear up to Canada?”
Blount sneered. “I come because I wanted to see the Yanks play a night game.”
Lundberg nodded. “I see. And between watching the Yanks, have you been messing around with dynamite lately?”
“Dynamite?” Blount’s face returned to its complete immobility. “I never messed around with dynamite.”
“No? How about that time you wired that automobile up in Troy?”
“That was a bum rap.”
“And how about that bank you blew up in Glens Falls?”
“That wasn’t dyna … That was a bum rap, too.”
Captain Wise bent over him again, his face reddening with anger. “How would you like a bum rap right across that nose of yours?”
“That’s right,” Lundberg said. He leaned over, a faint smile on his hard face. “You think you’re tough? You don’t know the captain here. Or me.” He straightened up, opening and closing a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt. “You’re going to the electric chair and you know it. But there’s no law says you got to walk there. They can carry you, too, even if you got a couple of broken legs. They can shave your head for the electrode, too, even if maybe the razor blade nicks a couple of scalp lacerations.…”
Blount stared at him. He took a deep breath.
“I’m going to the chair and I know it,” he said harshly. “But you ain’t going to make me talk first, no matter what you do.” He almost sneered. “You think I never got worked over, you don’t know the guards up there in the hole.…”
There was a knock on the door and a patrolman put his head in. He looked around the room, taking in the tense figures, and then settled his eyes on Inspector Clayton. “Mr. Wells,” he said. “He’s in your office.”
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