Ball Park

by John Farrow

  ‘I’m here about Quinn,’ Leonard stated. ‘I know you know her.’

  Ezra put a finger to his own lips, perhaps to silence him, perhaps to silence himself. He gestured for the young man to follow him through to the back room. There he switched the radio from the news to Brahms, only to decide that the music did not suit his mood. He turned it off and put his kettle on.

  When Ezra sat down, the young man, who he thought of as being only a boy, was already seated. Waiting, his backpack on the floor. ‘Of Quinn, what do you hear? Arrested, is she?’ the old man inquired gravely.

  ‘She’s been taken,’ Leonard said.

  ‘Half the city they’ve rounded up. They set upon children now?’

  ‘Not the police,’ the boy explained. ‘I wish. The Mafia took her.’

  Ezra Knightsbridge was hoping for a better report. He ruminated on the news. Ciampini had intimated his intentions. The Rabbit was undoubtedly involved. How could that young detective, Cinq-Mars, counter such forces?

  ‘For a fact, you know this?’ asked Ezra. ‘In times of war, rumors run wild.’

  ‘I called her father. They snatched her right out of her house.’

  ‘Oh my,’ Ezra said. He preferred that Leonard not know he had already been briefed. ‘Oh dear.’

  How much of this explained the police action? Could everything really revolve around Quinn? Usually people reacted with such abandon only when at war or in love. Which was it?

  ‘Curious, I am, Leonard. Why come here? Mafia, I have nothing to do with. What do you look for?’

  ‘Your help, of course,’ Leonard said. ‘You’re her friend.’

  Ezra Knightsbridge felt inclined, in the spirit of the moment, to explain the facts of a criminal life to the orphan. Do so in a fatherly fashion. Leonard had acquired experience down wayward alleys, that was true, yet he was not well versed in how the larger universe operated. He might have impressed upon him that friendship had nothing to do with the criminal world, other than as a fast track to lengthy incarceration. The opportunity to do so passed as the tinkling of the bell above his front door signaled another interruption.

  ‘Help yourself to a biscuit,’ he said, and returned to the storefront.

  Sergeant-Detective Yves Giroux moved through the overcrowded lockup slowly, scanning faces, until he noticed the man he was searching for. He then proceeded to ignore the figure and moved as though distracted until beckoned by a sound like hissing. He moved across to the man, who now leaned against the bars, his forearms hanging out.

  ‘I gave you decent warning,’ Giroux reminded him. He undertook the precaution to whisper. ‘Not my fault.’

  The Rabbit conceded the point. ‘They know me. If they want me, they find me. Now, real quick, spring me out of this rat cage.’

  ‘Spring you? I’m not a lawyer.’

  ‘The law is all fart and no shit today. Some guys hear their names called out and get booted. Make me one of those guys, Giroux. For once, I’ll take a kick in the ass if I land back on the sidewalk.’

  Giroux understood. But he needed the Rabbit to fully grasp the challenge. ‘Your record’s as long as both my arms and both yours. Factor that in. It’ll be a tough slog.’

  ‘Not that tough,’ the Rabbit predicted.

  ‘Why? You have no idea—’

  ‘I got you on my side, Giroux. You and your fat gut. I own you. Get me out.’

  ‘I helped you. I warned you they were coming in.’

  ‘What good does that do me now? Except I can trace the call – evidence about a copper who tipped me off.’

  ‘Come on, no need for that talk. Anyhow, I called you from a booth. I was on the go. Not traceable. I took a risk.’

  The Rabbit seized Giroux’s belt buckle in his right hand and drew him tight to the bars. ‘I been in here all night. Fun and games. Now I’m bored. Spring me out. That’s a fucking order.’

  Giroux nodded. He left the lockup immediately. If a man knew what was good for him, he did what the Rabbit requested. Outside the cell block, he exited down a corridor and turned right. The layout was familiar to him from his time in the Night Patrol, which felt like eons ago. He turned another corner and took the elevator up. He entered the corridor for the Night Patrol operations and hurried through a congested area of desks and busy cops, where he caught up with Émile Cinq-Mars.

  ‘Well?’ Cinq-Mars asked him.

  ‘In the frying pan. Sizzling like bacon.’

  ‘You and breakfast. OK, forty minutes to fry, then drain the grease.’

  ‘That long?’

  ‘He needs to believe it took time to shake things loose. Has to feel real.’

  ‘I can stamp his release?’

  ‘We can’t hold him. If we didn’t hijack his lawyer, he’d be out by now.’

  ‘You arrested his lawyer?’

  ‘Yeah, well, tomorrow we’ll say we’re sorry.’

  ‘God, Émile, you’re up to your eyeballs in this shit.’

  ‘Something I don’t know? Forty minutes, Giroux. No delay beyond that.’

  Ezra Knightsbridge identified the customer before him as European. In a bilingual city where the predominant language was French, variations in dialect were quickly discerned by the citizenry. A Parisian’s elocution was as obvious to a Quebecker as an Irishman’s lilt to a New Yorker. Ezra was generally more comfortable with people from the old countries; he appreciated their shared experience. That the dapper gentleman was from Belgium took a modicum of probing to uncover. To his mind, it explained the handlebar mustache under the shock of alabaster hair, the huge eyeglasses that magnified his pupils, and the fellow’s ebullient flair.

  The man’s younger female companion was a Quebecker. Timid alongside the gentleman’s hubbub. While the man intoned that he was looking for a ring of antique distinction to place upon the finger of his betrothed, the woman’s manner hinted at the frugality of their situation. He was looking for something old and distinguished, he said – by which he meant cheap. She was looking for anything that would do.

  Ezra displayed three possibilities. One struck their fancy. Two hundred and fifty dollars would stretch their budget, but they’d consider it. Ezra was confident of a return visit unless they found an acceptable piece of junk elsewhere. Of modest value, the ring met their criteria, and according to Knightsbridge had once been worth more. The gentleman took him to be an honest broker.

  On his return to the back room, Ezra stalled. Something nagged him. The hair on both his forearms rose. A sign of the tension of these days, he assumed. Leonard was not in the chair but roaming loose amid the merchandise – the last place he wanted a street urchin to be. He assured him, politely, that he would give every thought to Quinn and do his best for her. Now, under the circumstances, Leonard needed to depart.

  ‘Noel,’ Leonard said.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘It’s my real name, I found it out. I’m Noel now.’

  ‘Interesting. You must tell me the story. Another time. Noel, I am thanking you to close the door gently as you go. No. Wait.’

  Noel waited. Knightsbridge approached.

  ‘Not to be offended. I trust a thief to be a thief, the ruffian from the streets to take what falls in his lap. Only is it natural.’

  He rummaged through Leonard’s backpack. Nothing but books and notebooks. The ragamuffin dope dealer was a wannabe student who hadn’t stolen a thing.

  ‘No offense taken,’ the youth said as the backpack was returned to him. He left.

  The pawnbroker turned on the radio news and obeyed his whistling kettle. While the tea steeped, he reflected upon poor Quinn. What could he do? He possessed dangerous knowledge. If he called Giuseppe Ciampini and offered him the baseball for her life, he might be shot for not giving it up sooner, or merely for knowing of its importance. If he tried to be an intermediary, a greater risk was apparent. Quinn might be shot the very moment she was no longer needed. Worse, someone might decide that secrets would remain secret if they both floated in the
river. The two of them knew about the baseball. Where it had been. A knowledge that could be lethal. Either way, with the ball revealed or not revealed, Quinn was doomed. He failed to discern any significant benefit to dying alongside her.

  Assuming that Ciampini had snatched Quinn to save himself, he was unlikely to let her go. If Quinn had a hope or a prayer, Ezra concluded, it did not rest with him.

  He returned to the Brahms, although the music again failed to spark his spirit.

  After forty minutes, Sergeant-Detective Yves Giroux went back to the lockup and isolated himself with the Rabbit.

  ‘Still here,’ the Rabbit pointed out. ‘How come is that?’

  ‘There’s a thing,’ Giroux explained. ‘A ballbreaker.’

  ‘Take care of it,’ the Rabbit insisted.

  ‘No can do. I can’t work fucking miracles. It’s what this is all about.’ His eyes indicated the lockup, the men waiting to be processed. By extension, he meant the entire police action, the apparatus, and the night’s wholesale operations. The Rabbit caught his gesture.

  ‘Say.’

  ‘A girl. Ciampini took her, the cops think. They raided his joints looking for her. Bars, clubs, restaurants, his establishments … You know what I mean. Not only his. Associates been hit, too. Still no girl. If we locate her, you’re back out. If we don’t, people need to wait their turn to be grilled by the Night Patrol.’

  ‘Night Patrol,’ the Rabbit repeated. His tone terse.

  ‘For someone important like you, that means Touton himself.’

  Almost twenty years earlier, Touton ruptured the Rabbit’s spleen with a single punch. Over a notorious career, the Rabbit had been stabbed, slashed, beaten with knuckledusters and shot, all in a day’s work, but he counted that episode with Touton as the greatest horror in his life. As he related to others, taking that punch was like giving birth to twins through his nostrils. He feared death less than he feared Touton’s right hand. Never mind that the cop was getting on in years, as people said. He didn’t buy into that tall tale.

  ‘I don’t sell out Ciampini,’ the Rabbit whispered. ‘How can I anyway? I don’t know him.’

  ‘Of course not. Of course, you hardly know him. But it’s the girl, see. The girl. If she’s not found, nobody leaves. This doesn’t stop until the cops have her.’

  ‘The shits,’ the Rabbit summed up.

  ‘OK, you don’t know Ciampini, like you said. But if you can guess where the girl is—’

  ‘Watch your mouth, Giroux. I don’t sell out Ciampini. No price.’

  ‘Not selling out. Not selling. Nothing to do with you, right? Just about the girl. That’s all they need, these cops. This is strictly a rescue operation. Nobody’s looking to put Ciampini away. He walks. You walk. Nobody gets hurt. Just a rescue.’

  They hung on, looking around the overcrowded lockup. The body odor in the nearly airless room pungent. Soon, men would glow.

  ‘Sounds like pure, virgin, white-ass bullshit to me.’

  ‘Sure, it does. It’s not legal what they do. Shit to pay for the cops. Touton doesn’t give a crap because he’s quitting. He only wants the girl.’

  ‘Why the fuck care about some girl? There’s lots of girls. New ones get born.’

  ‘Nobody tells me why. The thing is …’ Giroux allowed an implication to float in the air.

  ‘Say.’

  ‘Last night, I called you from a phone booth. Not a problem for me.’

  The Rabbit waited.

  ‘Earlier. What I hear. A call went from Ciampini’s place to yours. This is not my operation. I’m speaking to you what I find out. Your name is all over this. Because of that call. They found out that Ciampini called your place. When Touton comes in tonight, you know what’s next. No lawyers. No rules. He’s in a real bad mood. Feeling righteous. That’s when you don’t want to know him. I prefer to get you out while we still have time.’

  The Rabbit studied the detective closely. He considered what he knew about the man. Giroux had done all right, coming through the night before to alert him. Without that tip, he might have been nabbed with a kidnap victim on his premises. Never a good thing.

  ‘Same minute?’ the Rabbit asked.

  ‘Not even,’ Giroux assured him. ‘Same goddamn second.’

  ‘Get me a telephone.’

  ‘Who’re you gonna call? Ciampini won’t tell you nothing. He knows you’re locked up. Pass it on to me, your best guess where’s the girl at.’

  ‘I don’t know Ciampini. Bumped into him once or twice. Who can avoid? Why he call my place I don’t know. Wrong number? But maybe I know his driver. Maybe his driver knows who he drives around. Maybe he drops somebody someplace.’

  Giroux arranged to take him to a room with a telephone.

  The cops traced the call, as everybody knew they would. They’d pay the driver a friendly visit. The Rabbit was giving Joe Ciampini to the cops without mentioning anybody’s name. He didn’t have to utter a single incriminating vowel. He simply asked a guy over the phone where he’d been lately and accepted ‘nowhere’ for an answer. The cops knew then whose arm to twist. They possessed ways and means. The Rabbit stayed in the clear, soon to hop away.

  Giroux was thrilled. Until the plan failed. His sure victory dashed.

  The driver broke under pressure. With the sharp end of a fork pressed against a closed eyelid, he admitted to picking up a girl at the Rabbit’s club. But later the drivers were switched. He took a cab home. He couldn’t say where the girl went after that because he didn’t know.

  After more pressure on the fork, he could not reveal the identity of the second driver quickly enough.

  The new guy was an assassin. Nobody’s chauffeur.

  He could not easily be tracked down.

  They were out of moves.

  Tumblers

  (Halfway to Tuscany)

  The young man who yapped about his name being Noel, or Leonard, or both, had successfully lured Ezra Knightsbridge into the back room. That cleared the way for Dr Eudo Lachapelle and Huguette Foss to enter the pawnshop, ringing the bell above the door. The pawnbroker heard them come in, but as he was occupied in the back room, he did not observe them enter. That allowed Jim Tanner to sneak in at that moment and hide. The plan worked like a charm. Tanner slipped behind the counter on the side of the room opposite the cash register while Eudo and Huguette attracted a world of attention to themselves. He slid under a counter and out of sight.

  There he stayed. As still as dirt.

  He waited for Knightsbridge to lock up.

  Noel, he thought, to keep his mind alive while lying perfectly still. Leonard. He wondered if the young man realized Noel spelled backwards was Leon, the first four letters of Leonard. That would’ve been something had he chosen Leon as his invented moniker. Close enough to be spooky. He’d mention it if they got through this and freed Quinn.

  He was in luck. Not wanting to be around when the Night Patrol returned to the streets for their last great expedition, the pawnbroker packed it in fifty minutes early and locked up. Knightsbridge never knew that his shop had been invaded.

  With the proprietor gone, Jim Tanner emerged from his crawl space.

  He suffered a rash of nerves.

  He was relying on cops, which inverted his world. He was also relying on a skill set best judged as rusty, and with his daughter’s life on the line. Failure was not an option, yet he could scarcely remember the last time he’d experienced success. Even his current union negotiations hinged on a difficult turn. He was bailing on his buddies right when they needed him the most. No explanation to anyone. How could he explain that he needed time away to crack a safe in a pawnshop to prevent his daughter from being slain by the mob?

  Rampant, random thoughts needed to be cast aside. Such as the conviction that if the mob killed his daughter, he’d start shooting guys in the mob, the closer to the top the better. A vow. That it amounted to suicide was not relevant. Partly the point. He’d not be long for this world if Quinn died. He’
d take others out with him – another thought to eject for now. Time to get to work.

  Tanner evaluated the alarm system. Not the world’s most sophisticated line of defense, as it protected the premises only from without. No impediment to his movements within the store existed. The shop depended on tried-and-true sliding metal grates, with locks, to seal off exterior windows and doors, as well as a rudimentary alarm. Break a window or bust a door lock and a loud signal would sound, alerting the street, but neither an alarm company nor the police would automatically be summoned. The primary intent of the installation was to protect the exterior, including the rear, where a steel door stood heavily bolted.

  The system’s sensors were not meant to be acutely sensitive – Knightsbridge could not have his alarm going off every time a garbage truck created an uproar in the lane, or a drunk beat his fist on the outside when berating the world. Any incursion or attempt to break in had to be blunt and heavy for it to be countered by an alarm’s piercing battle cry. He assured himself again that no impediment challenged anyone who had already infiltrated the back room. If he failed to neutralize the alarm on his way out, he’d escape under that barrage of noise and be gone, home free.

  His principal task, then, was to crack Ezra Knightsbridge’s safe. He got to work. He had tools, which Leonard/Leon/Noel had stowed in his backpack and sequestered in the back room behind one of the countless boxes. Ezra had examined the backpack in case the boy was taking something out, but never thought that he might have smuggled something in. The plan was for Jim Tanner to start hunting behind boxes at eye level and work lower if necessary. He found his toolset almost immediately, then crossed to the far side of the room to investigate the safe.

  Knowing Ezra from the old days, he counted on the safe being a relic. As tough as a tank, as heavy as lead. A correct guess. Fat and square, a black Diebold. In its time, the unit was overkill. Its mechanisms, as sophisticated as they were back in the day, had inherent flaws familiar to the former safecracker.

  In its time, the Sargent & Greenleaf combination lock had been rated at twenty hours, meaning that an expert would likely require twenty hours to unravel its code. The dial was protected against the safecracker’s technique of ‘punching’, and would reset whenever someone attempted the trick. That quick method, then, was out. On the plus side, he used to practice on S&Gs. Hours and hours of endless training. The safe itself bore a TL-60 label, meaning that an expert with the appropriate tools would require at least sixty minutes to physically break it open. When he first learned the trade, Jim Tanner found it convenient that safes indicated their level of defense and sophistication on an engraved label, as if to let him know what he was up against. The unit was also labeled X6, which meant that all six sides required the same length of time to cut or break through. Unfortunately, with his lighter-weight tools and no blowtorch, he had no ability to bust it apart.