Policewoman

by Uhnak, Dorothy

  Frank coughed and fumbled for his handkerchief, and Mrs. Crimmons seemed not to notice; she was studying the puffs of smoke that formed all around her face.

  The softness had gone completely from her voice. Her face, in the light from the lamp beside the chair, was bitter, and all the sweetness and smile had gone. She had had, during the telling of her story, the warm and breathy quality of a sleeping child, and yet there had been, to my mind, an indefinable aura of depravity about her. Perhaps it was her eyes, large and blurry, shining not with a light but with a wetness, blinking slowly and heavily with the weight of the moist layers of color smeared on the lids and the thick, sticky beads of mascara. The application of bright blotches of red on her high, thin cheeks was more pathetic than depraved, and her lipstick, a yellow-orange shade, was higher on one side of her mouth and gave her entire face a kind of unbalanced, lopsided appearance.

  And it was in her voice. We had listened to the sound of it, moving with the slurred words which ran together in a steamy, flowing heaviness. The woman spoke in a continuing swell of emotion; yet it was a contrived outrage. The inflection, a sort of pseudo-Southern sadness, seemed to be in the wrong places and for the wrong reasons.

  As she spoke, Mrs. Crimmons moved her hands, the long fingers climbing like spiders along the silken edge of her wrapper, making vain and feeble attempts to hold the garment against her body. I realized with a kind of disbelief—and at the same time without surprise—that the woman had nothing under the shimmering garment but her own round, full body.

  Her hair was a flashing red, and the roots were a pinkish-orange suggestive of the insistent gray that was struggling from the scalp. It was a thick mass, worn shoulder-length with wispy, crinkled bangs partially covering the lined forehead—altogether inappropriate for a middle-aged woman. Her whole manner was of one who had once been a genuine lady trying to convince the world that she was a lady still, and at the same time trying to convey that she was, more importantly and regardless of time, a woman.

  She filled the room with a strong and particular odor: an indefinable indication of sexuality. It was a combination of a certain mixture of heavy perfume and certain emanations of her own body that were not evidence of an unwashed state, not simply that. It was an unmistakable odor of some deep and driving physical desire, need, want, lust. It was still something more: something twisted, something degenerate and wrong and unhealthy and sickening.

  Yet I listened without expression: calm, attentive, nodding, making the occasional listening sounds demanded. I looked at my partner’s face to see if he, too, were aware of it—this thing that could not be spoken of, but was real and present in the room. Frank’s face was set into an odd frown, perhaps his idea of sympathetic interest. But his eyes were shining and alive now, and there was a certain tenseness about his mouth as this thing crept about us, enveloping us in its weight.

  Frank was aware of it, too.

  I snapped open my pocketbook, removed another sheet of folded paper. “Can you give us a description of the man, Mrs. Crimmons? The officers told us you were too upset last night.”

  The woman shrugged, ignoring the fact that her wrapper had slid open a few inches, revealing the soft division between her breasts. “It was dark. Good heavens, I didn’t look at him, I was trying to imagine myself away from him, from this terrible nightmare.”

  “Well, perhaps we could help you describe him,” Frank said blandly, concealing any feelings. “Was he young—early twenties, say?”

  “Yes, I would say so.”

  “Dark hair?”

  “Yes, dark,” she answered, her eyes on Frank’s black head, the warm intonations returning.

  “Dark eyes—brown?”

  Mrs. Crimmons crushed out her cigarette in a huge blue ceramic ash tray beside her on the table. “Dark hair, dark eyes, dark intentions.”

  I felt a shudder between my shoulders, a kind of rankling. The tone was almost, though not quite, coy. Mrs. Crimmons was studying Frank in long, open sweeps of her moist eyes. Her mouth was slightly open, relaxed. “Tall, short, medium, what?”

  “Not at all tall, officer—rather like you—medium, though not so well built.”

  Frank brushed a beady stream of sweat from his cheek. It was warm in the room.

  “Was he clean-shaven? Neat? Shabby?” Mrs. Crimmons, facing me again, shrugged impatiently. The sound of her voice returned to hardness. “Of course he was clean-shaven. I would have been scratched to pieces otherwise.” She ran a hand down each cheek. “The way he kissed me, you see.”

  I nodded. “How did he speak?” Frank asked. “Any accent? Well-spoken? What was his voice like?”

  “He had a thick way of talking, you understand—grunting, harsh, uneducated. Not like your voice. I would characterize your voice as, well, gentle—masculine and deep, but gentle.” She smiled, blinked, wet her lips quickly with the tip of her tongue. “I say this so you will have some basis of comparison, you see.”

  “Yes,” Frank answered without looking up. I wondered what he was writing, and saw a dark frown and a slow flushing start up the side of his face and around his ears.

  “Mrs. Crimmons, have you ever seen this man before, around the neighborhood, I mean?”

  “No, of course not. What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing,” I explained, “except that he seemed to know the neighborhood. You said he knew exactly where to go, and I thought you might have seen him, you know, hanging around the neighborhood.”

  “I do not make a habit of noticing loungers.” Mrs. Crimmons’ voice was cold and sharp, and her enunciation became false. “If you noticed this neighborhood ... Policewoman Uhnak, isn’t it? ... you would be aware that this is not the kind of place where hoodlums of this sort ‘lounge’ or ‘hang around.’” She repeated the expression with disdain.

  “Yes. Well, what else can you tell us about him?” I asked, ignoring her frowning disapproval. “Anything at all you can recall that might help us in locating him? Did he have any scars, any outstanding thing about him that might help us?”

  Mrs. Crimmons lit another cigarette and pulled her mouth downward as she dragged the smoke to the back of her throat. “He was a very vague, nondescript kind of person, the type you wouldn’t be able to pick out in a crowd,” she said, with something like defiance.

  I noticed that Frank had stopped asking questions; he was fidgety, pulling at his collar and smearing round and square designs on the border of his notebook page. “You mean you wouldn’t be able to recognize him?”

  Mrs. Crimmons shrugged indifferently. “I doubt it.”

  My face gave me away; my voice was devoid of incredulity. “You mean you wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a line-up? But you were with him for over four hours, in a bar with him ...”

  Mrs. Crimmons’ face became hard, and her eyes glittered brightly. “I do not think I care for your choice of words, policewoman,” she said elegantly. “I wasn’t ‘with him’ as you put it. I was held captive by him.”

  Frank came to life; he had been listening. “Yes, of course, that’s what Policewoman Uhnak meant. Surely, Mrs. Crimmons, you’d be able to pick him out of a group of four or five men.” Frank’s voice sounded dry, as if he were having trouble swallowing.

  Mrs. Crimmons smiled sadly. It was amazing to watch her switch her voice and expression back and forth between Frank and me. “As I say, he was one of these nondescript persons: dark hair, dark suit, nothing attractive about him. I could describe a man I passed on the street, a man on the bus whom I had seen for a moment or two—if he were attractive. If he was of a certain type, if you follow me.” Frank coughed; apparently he had tried to swallow and had hit that dry spot. “Like the late Mr. Crimmons—he was a man, you understand.” There was a quality of pride and fondness now. “Large and virile and attractive with that ‘something special’ radiating from him like a glow.” Mrs. Crimmons’ eyes ran over Frank’s sturdy compact body and then looked directly into his face. “I could describe you
quite accurately, detective, right down to your toes.” Then she paused a moment and brushed the air. “But not that little animal of last night—an absolute nonentity. I couldn’t even do a passing sketch of him.”

  Frank’s eyes stayed on hers for a moment, held; then his feet moved on the carpet, and he watched his pencil make meaningless strokes over a star he had drawn.

  “Listen, let me get you two something, it seems dreadful sitting here all this time.” Mrs. Crimmons rose quickly and brushed off my questions about the car: some nondescript four-door thing. Black, maybe; some cheap make; who knew? Walking across the room, conscious of Frank’s eyes on her body as the wrapper moved against her legs, she turned, coquettishly wagging a finger at him. “You’re a Scotch man, detective. I always know a Scotch man.”

  Frank lifted his hand to protest, but she waved a finger at him graciously. “Never mind now, I insist.” And then, belatedly remembering me, she softened with some effort. “And you, my dear, would you like something to drink? Good heavens, you seem so young to be a policewoman—to be involved in all this sordidness. I find it hard to understand how such a young girl could ... Well, what would you like?”

  Mrs. Crimmons was all warmth and charm and movement and soft sounds.

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Crimmons, nothing for me.”

  The room was deadly still—she had carried it all out with her. In the emptiness, Frank rubbed his hand over his face, then rolled his eyes at me. I suppressed a grin, for he wasn’t smiling. She came fluttering back into the room and held up a shot glass of amber liquid to Frank, and stood next to him as he tossed the Scotch down his throat. Then she handed him a glass of water, her eyes on his throat. Her own Scotch she sipped over some ice from a water tumbler, and it seemed to have no effect on her. Frank handed her the empty water glass and then finally mumbled, “Well, I guess that’s all you can tell us, Mrs. Crimmons. We’ll do what we can and keep in touch with you.”

  Mrs. Crimmons was smiling sadly. Her Southern sounds returned as she shook hands with me. “Yes, indeed, it was a dreadful thing, and I do appreciate you people coming out here. It’s such a nuisance, I realize. I do wish I could help you some more, but there’s really so little else to tell.” She had reverted completely to the image she had initially presented. It was an amazing performance.

  I pulled my hand from her wet clasp, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was reaching for Frank’s hand, her eyes, almost on a level with his, fastened on his lips, and his lips, feeling the impact of that wet stare, twitched slightly.

  “Thank you so much. Detective Warener, isn’t it? You’ve been so kind, and it’s so very reassuring to know we have such fine police officers. I’m sure you’ll do everything that you can. And let me know if I can be of any help to you. Anything at all that I can do for you, you let me know.” And finally releasing his hand, she smiled and said softly, “I certainly would be able to describe you, detective.”

  Frank made a kind of gagging sound, pretending not to notice that one leg was exposed from the thigh to the ankle and that that leg was pressing against his own. He nodded and opened the door for me.

  I stopped for a moment, a silly, childish feeling of nastiness prodding me. “Say, Mrs. Crimmons, I do a little sketching myself. I’d be very interested in seeing some of your work. Do you have any around?”

  The shrewd eyes read my face; she ground her teeth together and spoke in a hissing voice. “I leave my sketch pad at Mr. Domingo’s,” she said.

  “Oh, what a shame—I would have liked to have seen your work.” I hesitated, then added meanly, “I’m sure you’re a real professional.”

  The face folded into a network of hard wrinkles, and Frank’s hand propelled me through the door, which slammed behind us. We heard the sharp jamming of a brass chain as the woman locked the door.

  We walked down the patio steps and turned toward the corner where the car was parked. We walked nearly a full block before Frank stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and started to say something, then caught himself and shook his head, as though trying to wake himself up. “Jesus,” he said, wonder and amazement and finally humor breaking into his expression. “Jesus! You know something, Dorothy, that’s the first time my squad commander ever sent me on an assignment where I needed a policewoman as a bodyguard!” And he looked over his shoulder, back to where he had come through his ordeal safely.

  We were laughing in gulps during the ride back to the precinct, latching on to words, insinuations, feelings, not even sharing them, and when we typed up our report, which was brief, terse and official, we ended it with one word: “Unfounded.”

  7

  “Your only friend in all the world”

  LIKE ANY OTHER JOB, police work falls into set patterns: patrol this sector, cover this assignment, check this complaint, interview this man, this woman, this child, investigate this company, work on this case. But you are always conscious that the unexpected, the sudden violent event, is also part of the routine. If there is an undue hardness in the voice of the traffic cop stopping an offender for a minor violation, it might be because he remembers, in some deep part of his brain, hearing or reading of some cop, somewhere—stopping a light-jumper, a speeder, an improper turner—a cop who, summons book in hand, was shot dead. For no reason. If there is a dictatorial tone in the command of a policeman who tells a group of curious onlookers at some unusual event to move on, it might be because he has seen a curious crowd grow into a menacing mob. He has been part of it, has seen its ugly nature. In each arrest you make, you learn to take the initiative. It is essential. You take control immediately, and if your prisoner seems to be a nice guy, mild, calm, you don’t give him any credit for his seeming meekness until he is safely deposited at the precinct. You learn not to relent, and you are aware that many police officers have failed in this lesson and lost their lives during a seemingly innocuous event that should have been merely “routine.”

  When I was given the assignment to work with Hank Ludlow, I was enthusiastic because it was an opportunity to work a regular day. A very regular day: 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.

  The Kensington Shoe Company occupied a suite of rooms in a modernistic glass building just off Fifth Avenue in the Fifties. The girls who worked there, the secretaries and shoe designers and models and assistants-to-vice presidents, were the type of women I had always avoided when possible. They were the grown-up little girls of my childhood, the clubby sophisticates of my adolescence: always sure, always right, chic, everything perfect The right dress worn over the right sleek little garments; the sheerest stockings, always with a dull finish and never with a run; the played-down magical make-up that seemed to grow on their skin; the luminous eyes just indicating shadows; lipstick that never smeared, in shades that were beyond definite classification; and hair that fitted their heads, carefully casual, discreetly tinted with glistenings of color that subtly suggested sunshine. My feet ached in the unaccustomed high heels. When you patrol, you take refuge in flat, comfortable shoes. You wear warm bulky sweaters against the bitterness of nights, and hats that keep your ears covered.

  I felt dressed up and ready for the theater, but this was how these girls dressed every day. I had spent extra time in the morning being careful with my make-up, and had walked around in my stocking feet until the last minute. I was supposed to be “one of the girls,” and even knowing, realizing that it was just for the assignment, not for real, there was still that peculiar feeling of resentment, that old throwback rebellion of my tomboy days—not me!

  We had interviewed the president of the company, Mac Gluttman—“Mr. Mac”—on Tuesday of the week. He was a short, stocky man with a square, blunt head lined on each side with cropped white hair. He had deep creases from his nose to his mouth, which turned heavily downward, and his elegant, custom-made suit fitted his Brooklyn-made body to perfection, emphasizing the thick shoulders and barrel chest.

  “No crummy two-bit thief is gonna take me,” he said, jamming his powerful thumb into his chest.
When he spoke, an old-time venom took possession of his voice, and he seemed like some intruder—some roughneck—behind his shining, expensive long desk. “I know this type, I know this kind of bum, ya know.” He leaned forward, shaking his head to advise us he was going to level with us—we would understand that he was no dumbhead. We were speaking to a self-made man who didn’t get things handed to him on a platter; he was not to the shoe-business born. The hard way, that’s how he got where he was. And where he was was at the head of a million-dollar fashion shoe outfit, the head of one of the sharpest, sleekest, shrewdest firms in the country.

  “See those people out there?” He jutted that square jaw, prickly with tough white hairs, toward the paneled doors of his office. “Young. That’s what I like around me. Young. Those girls—not one over twenty-five, including my two top designers. Young, that’s what this firm is, and their president,” thumping his chest, “is young, too. Sixty-four years old last May, and younger than the youngest one out there. I would take that bum myself, but my son,” he turned and looked sourly at his replica, who stood motionless at his father’s side, “he wants to do it this way. So you catch the bum, and don’t let me get my hands on him—that’s all I gotta say! Leo, you take them inside, in your office, and you tell them the score.”

  Mr. Mac slid his lower lip out as he studied me, ankles to knees, knees to waist, waist to neck, blinked quickly, dismissing my face, then down the line again. Then he nodded. I had apparently passed his strict inspection. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Young—it’s the best way to be, goddamn it. Ask me, I know.”

  “Mr. Leo” led us into his office, which was carpeted and quietly decorated by the same hand as his father’s but was not nearly so lavish: he had not yet earned it. Mr. Leo was a weary man with lank black hair and his father’s bullish shortness and shoulders and long arms which made him appear almost apish. He had smeary black rings under his eyes that extended down his cheeks and black, thick eyebrows that met over his nose and heavy, coarse lips. His fingers were yellow-stained and dirty, and the cuffs of his shirt were rimmed at their expensive edges with just a trace of grime. His manner was anything but young: he seemed too weary to last the day out.