by Ed McBain
“So-so. This here is Stu Levine.”
“Glad to meet you,” La Bresca said.
“Same here,” Meyer said, and extended his hand.
“This here is Tony La Bresca. He shoots a good game.”
“Nobody shoots as good as you,” La Bresca said.
“Stu here shoots the way Angie used to. You remember Angie who was crippled? That’s the way Stu here shoots.”
“Yeah, I remember Angie,” La Bresca said, and both men burst out laughing. Meyer laughed with them, what the hell.
“Stu’s father taught him,” Tino said.
“Yeah? Who taught his father?” La Bresca said, and both men burst out laughing again.
“I hear you got yourself a job,” Tino said.
“That’s right.”
“You just getting through?”
“Yeah, I thought I’d shoot a game or two before supper. You see Calooch around?”
“Yeah, he’s over there by the windows.”
“Thought maybe I’d shoot a game with him.”
“Why’nt you join us right here?” Tino said.
“Thanks,” La Bresca said, “but I promised Calooch I’d shoot a game with him. Anyway, you’re too much of a shark.”
“A shark, you hear that, Stu?” Tino said. “He thinks I’m a shark.”
“Well, I’ll see you,” La Bresca said, and walked over to the window table. A tall thin man in a striped shirt was bent over the table, angling for a shot. La Bresca waited until he had run off three or four balls, and then they both went up to the front booth. The lights suddenly came on over a table across the hall. La Bresca and the man named Calooch went to the table, took sticks down, racked up the balls, and began playing.
“Who’s Calooch?” Meyer asked Tino.
“Oh, that’s Pete Calucci,” Tino said.
“Friend of Tony’s?”
“Oh, yeah, they know each other a long time.”
Calooch and La Bresca were doing a lot of talking. They weren’t doing too much playing, but they sure were talking a lot. They talked, and then one of them took a shot, and then they talked some more, and after a while the other one took a shot, and it went like that for almost an hour. At the end of the hour, both men put up their sticks, and shook hands. Calooch went back to the window table, and La Bresca went up front to settle for the time. Meyer looked up at the clock and said, “Wow, look at that, already six o’clock. I better get home, my wife’ll murder me.”
“Well, Stu, I enjoyed playing with you,” Tino said.
“Stop in again sometime.”
“Yeah, maybe I will,” Meyer said.
The street outside was caught in the pale gray grasp of dusk, empty, silent except for the keening of the wind, bitterly cold, forbidding. Anthony La Bresca walked with his hands in the pockets of his beige car coat, the collar raised, the green muffler wound about his neck and flapping in the fierce wind. Meyer stayed far behind him, mindful of Kling’s embarrassing encounter the night before and determined not to have the same thing happen to an old experienced workhorse like himself. The cold weather and the resultant empty streets did not help him very much. It was comparatively simple to tail a man on a crowded street, but when there are only two people left alive in the world, the one up front might suddenly turn at the sound of a footfall or a tail-of-the-eye glimpse of something or someone behind him. So Meyer kept his distance and utilized every doorway he could find, ducking in and out of the street, greateful for the frantic activity that helped ward off the cold, convinced he would not be spotted, but mindful of the alternate risk he was running: if La Bresca turned a corner suddenly, or entered a building unexpectedly, Meyer could very well lose him.
The girl was waiting in a Buick.
The car was black, Meyer made the year and make at once, but he could not read the license plate because the car was too far away, parked at the curb some two blocks up the street. The engine was running. The exhaust threw gray plumes of carbon monoxide into the gray and empty street. La Bresca stopped at the car, and Meyer ducked into the closest doorway, the windowed alcove of a pawnshop. Surrounded by saxophones and typewriters, cameras and tennis rackets, fishing rods and loving cups, Meyer looked diagonally through the joined and angled windows of the shop and squinted his eyes in an attempt to read the license plate of the Buick. He could not make out the numbers. The girl had blond hair, it fell loose to the base of her neck, she leaned over on the front seat to open the door for La Bresca.
La Bresca got into the car and slammed the door behind him.
Meyer came out of the doorway just as the big black Buick gunned away from the curb.
He still could not read the license plate.
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Chapter 7
* * *
Nobody likes to work on Saturday.
There’s something obscene about it, it goes against the human grain. Saturday is the day before the day of rest, a good time to stomp on all those pressures that have been building Monday to Friday. Given a nice blustery rotten March day with the promise of snow in the air and the city standing expectantly monolithic, stoic, and solemn, given such a peach of a Saturday, how nice to be able to start a cannel coal fire in the fireplace of your three-room apartment and smoke yourself out of the joint. Or, lacking a fireplace, what better way to utilize Saturday than by pouring yourself a stiff hooker of bourbon and curling up with a blonde or a book, spending your time with War and Peace or Whore and Piece, didn’t Shakespeare invent some of his best puns on Saturday, drunk with a wench in his first best bed?
Saturday is a quiet day. It can drive you to distraction with its prospects of leisure time, it can force you to pick at the coverlet wondering what to do with all your sudden freedom, it can send you wandering through the rooms in search of occupation while moodily contemplating the knowledge that the loneliest night of the week is fast approaching.
Nobody likes to work on Saturday because nobody else is working on Saturday.
Except cops.
Grind, grind, grind, work, work, work, driven by a sense of public-mindedness and dedication to humanity, law enforcement officers are forever at the ready, alert of mind, swift of body, noble of purpose.
Andy Parker was asleep in the swivel chair behind his desk.
“Where is everybody?” one of the painters said.
“What?” Parker said. “Huh?” Parker said, and sat bolt upright, and glared at the painter and then washed his huge hand over his face and said, “What the hell’s the matter with you, scaring a man that way?”
“We’re leaving,” the first painter said.
“We’re finished,” the second painter said.
“We already got all our gear loaded on the truck, and we wanted to say good-by to everybody.”
“So where is everybody?”
“There’s a meeting in the lieutenant’s office,” Parker said.
“We’ll just pop in and say good-by,” the first painter said.
“I wouldn’t advise that,” Parker said.
“Why not?”
“They’re discussing homicide. It’s not wise to pop in on people when they’re discussing homicide.”
“Not even to say good-by?”
“You can say good-by to me,” Parker said.
“It wouldn’t be the same thing,” the first painter said.
“So then hang around and say good-by when they come out. They should be finished before twelve. In fact, they got to be finished before twelve.”
“Yeah, but we’re finished now,” the second painter said.
“Can’t you find a few things you missed?” Parker suggested. “Like, for example, you didn’t paint the typewriters, or the bottle on the water cooler, or our guns. How come you missed our guns? You got green all over everything else in the goddamn place.”
“You should be grateful,” the first painter said. “Some people won’t work on Saturday at all, even at time and a half.”
So both painters left in high dudgeon, and Parker went back to sleep in the swivel chair behind his desk.
“I don’t know what kind of a squad I’m running here,” Lieutenant Byrnes said, “when two experienced detectives can blow a surveillance, one by getting made first crack out of the box, and the other by losing his man; that’s a pretty good batting average for two experienced detectives.”
“I was told the suspect didn’t have a car,” Meyer said. “I was told he had taken a train the night before.”
“That’s right, he did,” Kling said.
“I had no way of knowing a woman would be waiting for him in a car,” Meyer said.
“So you lost him,” Byrnes said, “which might have been all right if
the man had gone home last night. But O’Brien was stationed outside the La Bresca house in Riverhead, and the man never showed, which means we don’t know where he is today, now do we? We don’t know where a prime suspect is on the day the deputy mayor is supposed to get killed.”
“No, sir,” Meyer said, “we don’t know where La Bresca is.”
“Because you lost him.”
“I guess so, sir.”
“Well, how would you revise that statement, Meyer?”
“I wouldn’t, sir. I lost him.”
“Yes, very good, I’ll put you in for a commendation.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t get flip, Meyer.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“This isn’t a goddamn joke here, I don’t want Scanlon to wind up with two holes in his head the way Cowper did.”
“No, sir, neither do I.”
“Okay, then learn for Christ’s sake how to tail a person, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now what about this other man you say La Bresca spent time with in conversation, what was his name?”
“Calucci, sir. Peter Calucci.”
“Did you check him out?”
“Yes, sir, last night before I went home. Here’s the stuff we got from the B.C.I.”
Meyer placed a manila envelope on Byrnes’ desk, and then stepped back to join the other detectives ranged in a military line before the desk. None of the men was smiling. The lieutenant was in a lousy mood, and somebody was supposed to come up with fifty thousand dollars before noon, and the possibility existed that the deputy mayor would soon be dispatched to that big City Hall in the sky, so nobody was smiling. The lieutenant reached into the envelope and pulled out a photocopy of a fingerprint card, glanced at it cursorily, and then pulled out a photocopy of Calucci’s police record.
Byrnes read the sheet, and then said, “When did he get out?”
“He was a bad apple. He applied for parole after serving a third of the sentence, was denied, and applied every year after that. He finally made it in seven.”
Byrnes looked at the sheet again.
IDENTIFICATION BUREAU
NAME Peter Vincent Calucci
IDENTIFICATION JACKET NUMBER P 421904
ALIAS “Calooch” “Cooch” “Kook”
COLOR White
RESIDENCE 336 South 91st Street, Isola
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1938 AGE 22
BIRTHPLACE Isola
HEIGHT 5’9” WEIGHT 156 HAIR Brown EYES Brown
COMPLEXION Swarthy OCCUPATION Construction worker
SCARS AND TATTOOS Appendectomy scar, no tattoos.
ARRESTED BY: Patrolman Henry Butler
DETECTIVE DIVISION NUMBER: 63-R1-1605-1960
DATE OF ARREST 3/14/60 PLACE 812 North 65 St., Isola
CHARGE Robbery
BRIEF DETAILS OF CRIME Calucci entered gasoline station
at 812 North 65 Street at or about midnight, threatened to shoot
attendant if he did not open safe. Attendant said he did not know
combination, Calucci cocked revolver and was about to fire when
patrolman Butler of 63rd Precinct came upon scene and apprehended
him.
PREVIOUS RECORD None
INDICTED Criminal Courts, March 15, 1960.
FINAL CHARGE Robbery in first degree, Penal Law 2125
DISPOSITION Pleaded guilty 7/8/60, sentenced to ten years at Castleview Prison.
“What’s he been doing?” Byrnes asked.
“Construction work.”
“That how he met La Bresca?”
“Calucci’s parole officer reports that his last job was with Abco Construction, and a call to the company listed La Bresca as having worked there at the same time.”
“I forget, does this La Bresca have a record?”
“No, sir.”
“Has Calucci been clean since he got out?”
“According to his parole officer, yes, sir.”
“Now who’s this person ‘Dom’ who called La Bresca Thursday night?”
“We have no idea, sir.”
“Because La Bresca tipped to your tailing him, isn’t that right, Kling?”
“Yes, sir, that’s right, sir.”
“Is Brown still on that phone tap?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you tried any of our stoolies?”
“No, sir, not yet.”
“Well, when the hell do you propose to get moving? We’re supposed to deliver fifty thousand dollars by twelve o’clock. It’s now a quarter after ten, when the hell …”
“Sir, we’ve been trying to get a line on Calucci. His parole officer gave us an address, and we sent a man over, but his landlady says he hasn’t been there since early yesterday morning.”
“Of course not!” Byrnes shouted. “The two of them are probably shacked up with that blond woman, whoever the hell she was, planning how to murder Scanlon when we fail to deliver the payoff money. Get Danny Gimp or Fats Donner, find out if they know a fellow named Dom who dropped a bundle on a big fight two weeks ago. Who the hell was fighting two weeks ago, anyway? Was that the championship fight?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, get cracking. Does anybody use Gimp besides Carella?”
“No, sir.”
“Who uses Donner?”
“I do, sir.”
“Then get him right away, Willis.”
“If he’s not in Florida, sir. He usually goes south in the winter.”
“Goddamn stool pigeons go south,” Byrnes grumbled, “and we’re
stuck here with a bunch of maniacs trying to kill people. All right, go on, Willis, get moving.”
“Yes, sir,” Willis said, and left the office.
“Now what about this other possibility, this deaf man thing? Jesus Christ, I hope it’s not him, I hope this is La Bresca and Calucci and the blond bimbo who drove him clear out of sight last night, Meyer …”
“Yes, sir …”
“… and not that deaf bastard again. I’ve talked to the commissioner on this, and I’ve also talked to the deputy mayor and the mayor, and we’re agreed that paying the fifty thousand dollars is out of the question. We’re to try apprehending whoever picks up that lunch pail and see if we can’t get a lead this time. And we’re to provide protection for Scanlon and that’s all for now. So I want you two to arrange the drop, and saturation coverage of that bench, and I want a suspect brought in here today, and I want him questioned till he’s blue in the face, have a lawyer ready and waiting for him in case he screams Miranda-Escobedo, I want a lead today, have you got that?”
“Yes, sir,” Meyer said.
“Yes, sir,” Kling said.
“You think you can set up the drop and cover without fouling it up like you fouled up the surveillance?”
“Yes, sir, we can handle it.”
“All right, then get going, and bring me some meat on this goddamn case.”
“Yes, sir,” Kling and Meyer said together, and then went out of the office.
“Now what’s this about a junkie being in that room with the killer?” Byrnes asked Hawes.
“That’s right, sir.”
“
Well, what’s your idea, Cotton?”
“My idea is he got her in there to make sure she’d be stoned when he started shooting, that’s my idea, sir.”
“That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard in my life,” Byrnes said. “Get the hell out of here, go help Meyer and Kling, go call the hospital, find out how Carella’s doing, go set up another plant for those two punks who beat him up, go do something, for Christ’s sake!”
“Yes, sir,” Hawes said, and went out into the squadroom.
Andy Parker, awakened by the grumbling of the other men, washed his hand over his face, blew his nose, and then said, “The painters said to tell you good-by.”
“Good riddance,” Meyer said.
“Also, you got a call from the D.A.’s office.”
“Who from?”
“Rollie Chabrier.”
“When was this?”
“Half-hour ago, I guess.”
“Why didn’t you put it through?”
“While you were in there with the loot? No, sir.”
“I’ve been waiting for this call,” Meyer said, and immediately dialed Chabrier’s number.
“Mr. Chabrier’s office,” a bright female voice said.
“Bernice, this is Meyer Meyer up at the 87th. I hear Rollie called me a little while ago.”
“That’s right,” Bernice said.
“Would you put him on, please?”
“He’s gone for the day,” Bernice said.
“Gone for the day? It’s only a little after ten.”
“Well,” Bernice said, “nobody likes to work on Saturday.”
The black lunch pail containing approximately fifty thousand scraps of newspaper was placed in the center of the third bench on the Clinton Street footpath into Grover Park by Detective Cotton Hawes, who was wearing thermal underwear and two sweaters and a business suit and an overcoat and ear muffs. Hawes was an expert skier, and he had skied on days when the temperature at the base was four below zero and the temperature at the summit was thirty below, had skied on days when his feet went and his hands went and he boomed the mountain non-stop not for fun or sport but just to get near the fire in the base lodge before he shattered into a hundred brittle pieces. But he had never been this cold before. It was bad enough to be working on Saturday, but it was indecent to be working when the weather threatened to gelatinize a man’s blood.