by Ed McBain
He had put the thought out of his mind, sitting in the corridor. He called the precinct every half hour. And every half hour, he called home. The precinct had nothing to report. There were no leads to the new death of Dolores Faured. There were no leads to the old deaths of Aníbal and Maria Hernandez. There were no leads to Gonzo.
Things weren't much better at home. Larry was still in the process of shaking his sickness. The doctor had come again, but nothing seemed to displease Byrnes' son more. Byrnes wondered if he would ever be cured, and he wondered if they would ever find the man or men who were committing murder in his precinct. It was two days before Christmas, but Christmas would be a bleak time this year.
At six fifteen, he left the corridor and went down to the lobby. He stopped at the reception desk and asked the girl there if there was a decent eating place in the neighborhood. She suggested a greasy spoon on Lafayette.
He was heading for the revolving doors when a voice called, "Lieutenant?"
Byrnes turned. He didn't recognize the man at first. The man was small and thin, and he carried a box of candy under his arm, and he looked seedy, the way a normally seedy-looking person appears when he's trying to look dressed up. And then the face fell into place, and Byrnes said gruffly, "Hello, Danny. What're you doing here?"
"I came to see Carella," Danny said. He blinked and looked up at Byrnes.
"Yes?" Byrnes said, untouched.
"Yeah," Danny said. "How is he?"
"Bad," Byrnes said. "Look, Danny, you don't mind but I was on my way out to dinner. I'm kind of in a hurry."
"Sure, sure," Danny said.
Byrnes looked at him, and perhaps because it was almost Christmas, he added, "you know how it is. This Gonzo character shooting Carella hasn't…"
"Who? Did you say Gonzo? Is he the one shot St—Detective Carella?"
"That's the way it looks," Byrnes said.
"What are you telling me?" Danny asked. "A punk kid like that? He took Steve Carella?"
"Why?" Byrnes said. He was interested now, but only because Danny had referred to Gonzo as if he knew him. "What do you mean, a punk kid?"
"He can't be more than twenty, not the way I got it."
"What do you know, Danny?"
"Well, like Ste— Well, Carella asked me to scout around on Gonzo, and I didn't come up with nothing. I mean, I scouted around because Ste…"
"For Christ's sake, call him Steve," Byrnes said.
"Well, some cops are touchy about…"
"What have you got to say, Danny, goddamnit!"
"Even Steve don't like me calling him Steve," Danny admitted, and then—seeing the look on Byrnes' face—rapidly went on. "Nobody knew this Gonzo, you dig? So with me, it becomes a mathematical problem. How come these three kids coming to make a buy from this guy know him by Gonzo, and how come nobody on the scene knows him? It figures he ain't from the neighborhood, am I right?"
"Go ahead," Byrnes said, interested.
"Then I ask myself, if he ain't from the neighborhood, how come he inherits the dead Hernandez' junk route? This don't figure. I mean, it looks like he at least knew Hernandez, don't it? And if he knew Hernandez, maybe he knew the sister, too. This is the way I was thinking, Lieutenant, putting together all the things Steve told me."
"So what'd you get?"
"I got a guy who's a stranger in the neighborhood, but who maybe knew the Hernandezes. So I went to see the old lady, Mrs. Hernandez. I talked to her, you know, fishing around, figuring this Gonzo was maybe a cousin or something, you know these Puerto Ricans—strong family ties."
"Is he a cousin?"
"She don't make a cousin named Gonzo. She was talking true, too, because she knows me from the neighborhood. Gonzo don't ring a bell."
"I could have told you that, Danny. My men questioned Mrs. Hernandez also."
"But she tells me her son had a friend. He used to belong to the Sea Scouts, she says, and he used to go to these meetings up in Riverhead at a high school there. I check around, and I find out this is called the Junior Navals, a thing where some ex-Navy jerk got a bunch of kids together and slapped them in monkey suits so they could march around once a week. Only Hernandez don't go there to march. He goes there to push his junk. Anyway, the kid he knows there is called Dickie Collins."
"How does this tie with Gonzo?"
"Well, listen," Danny said. "I start snooping around about this Dickie Collins kid. He used to live around here, moved a while ago, his old man got a job selling storm doors up in Riverhead, so the little extra dough enabled him to get the hell out of the neighborhood. But Dickie's still got ties here, like that, you know? Comes back every now and then, and visits with the boys—including Aníbal Hernandez, the late. Met the sister a coupla times, too. Okay, so one night there's a card game. Small time, penny-ante stuff. This was only about two weeks ago, so it explains why there's nobody knows this Gonzo bit except four people, one of which is now dead. Luckily, I latched onto an alive one."
"Spill it," Byrnes said.
"There was four people in the game. A kid named Sam Di Luca, this kid Dickie Collins, Maria Hernandez, and an older guy from the neighborhood."
"Who was the older guy?"
"The Di Luca kid don't remember—and Maria Hernandez can't say any more. From what I could gather, they were shooting up that night, and this Di Luca's only sixteen, so he was probably blind. I got to explain this Di Luca kid, he calls himself Batman. That's his nickname. They all got nicknames, which is maybe why this Gonzo thing appealed."
"Get to the point, Danny."
"Okay. Sometime during the night, the four of them having a ball and playing cards, the older guy mentioned something about a cheap gunsel in the neighborhood. Well, it turns out this kid Dickie Collins, he's never heard the word 'gunsel.' It's kind of a dead expression, you know, Lieutenant? I mean, hardly anybody but oldtimers use it nowadays. Like 'torpedo,' you know? Out of fashion. So it's understandable, him being a snotnose kid, that he never heard it. But dig this. He says, 'A gonzo? What the hell's a gonzo?' Now this broke up the joint. Maria fell off her chair, and the older guy was practically rolling on the floor and Batman damn near wet his pants, it was so funny."
"I see," Byrnes said thoughtfully.
"So for the rest of the night, they kept calling him Gonzo. That's what this Batman tells me, anyway. But like there's only the four of them who know about it—just Batman, Maria, Dickie, and the older guy. And like Maria's pretty dead now, you know."
"Dickie Collins is Gonzo," Byrnes repeated blankly.
"Yeah. Batman, he forgot about the whole thing after that night. He was stinking drunk, anyway. But when I start asking about Gonzo, he remembers. The older guy, Christ alone knows who he is."
"Dickie Collins is Gonzo," Byrnes repeated blankly.
"Sure. Lives in Riverhead now. One of the cheaper neighborhoods there. You going to pick him up?"
"He shot Carella, didn't he?" Byrnes asked. He reached into his wallet and took out a ten-dollar bill. "Here, Danny," he said, offering the money.
Danny shook his head. "No, Lieutenant, thanks."
Byrnes stared at him unbelievingly.
"One thing you can do for me, though," Danny said, somewhat embarrassed.
"What's that?"
"I'd like to go upstairs. I'd like to see Steve."
Byrnes hesitated a moment. Then he walked to the desk and said, "I'm Detective-Lieutenant Byrnes. This man is working on the case with us. I'd like him to go upstairs."
"Yes, sir," the girl said, and then she looked over toward Danny Gimp who was smiling from ear to ear.
Chapter Fifteen
They caught Dickie Collins on Christmas Eve.
They caught him as he was coming out of church, where he had just lighted a candle for his dead grandmother.
They took him to the Squad Room of the 87th Precinct, and four detectives surrounded him there. One of the detectives was Peter Byrnes. The others were Havilland, Meyer and Willis.
"What's your name?" Will
is asked.
"Dickie Collins. Richard."
"What aliases do you go by?" Havilland asked.
"None."
"Ever own a gun?" Meyer asked.
"No. Never."
"Know Aníbal Hernandez?" Byrnes asked.
"The name sounds familiar."
"Did you know him, or didn't you?"
"Yeah, I knew him, I guess. I knew lots of kids in the neighborhood."
"When did you move?"
"Coupla months ago."
"Why?"
"My old man got a new job. I go where he goes."
"Did you want to move?"
"Makes no difference. I'm a free agent. I travel where I want to, no matter where I live. What's all the questions for? What did I do?"
"What were you doing on the night of December 17th?"
"How do I know? When the hell was that, anyway?"
"A week ago today."
"I don't remember."
"Were you with Hernandez?"
"I don't remember."
"Start trying to remember."
"No, I wasn't with Hernandez. What was that, a Saturday night?"
"It was a Sunday night."
"No, I wasn't with him."
"Where were you?"
"In church."
"What?"
"I go to church every Sunday night. I light candles for my grandmother."
"How long did you stay in church?"
"About an hour. I say a coupla prayers, too."
"From what time to what time?"
"From about… from about ten to eleven."
"And then what'd you do?"
"I drifted around."
"Who saw you drifting?"
"Nobody. What do I need witnesses for? You trying to hang the Hernandez kill on me?"
"What makes you think he was killed?"
"He hung himself," Collins said.
"Okay, but what made you call it a kill?"
"A suicide's a kill, ain't it?"
"Why should we try to hang a suicide on you?"
"How do I know? What else you got me in here for, if not that? You're asking questions about that night, ain't you? You're asking me if I knew Annabelle, ain't you?"
"You did know him."
"Sure, I knew him."
"From the neighborhood or from the Sea Scouts?"
"What Sea Scouts?"
"In Riverhead."
"Oh, you mean the Junior Navals. That ain't the Sea Scouts. Yeah, yeah."
"Where'd you know Mm from?"
"I used to say hello when I lived in the neighborhood. Then, when I met him at the Navals, we got a little friendly."
"Why'd you say you guessed you knew him? If you got friendly, then you knew him."
"Okay, I knew him. Is that a crime?"
"Why'd you go to the Navals?"
"I didn't belong. I only went to watch the marching. I like to watch guys march."
"You'll do a lot of marching where you're going," Havilland said.
"Yeah, you got to send me there first, cop. I still ain't heard no charge. Are you booking or just looking?"
"You're a pusher, aren't you, Collins?"
"You're dreaming."
"We've got three kids who made a buy from you. One is ready to identify you."
"Yeah? What's his name?"
"Hemingway."
"What're the other two called? Sinclair Lewis and William Faulkner?"
"You read a lot, Collins?"
"Enough."
"This kid Hemingway doesn't read. He's a junkie. He bought a sixteenth of heroin from you on the afternoon of December 20th. One of our detectives nabbed him right after he made the buy."
"So that's why I was being fol…" Collins cut himself short.
"What?"
"I didn't say nothing. If your Hemingway made a buy, he didn't get it from me."
"He said he did. He said it came from you."
"I don't know what a sixteenth of H looks like."
"Did you know Hernandez was a junkie?"
"Yeah."
"He ever shoot up with you?"
"No."
"You never saw him shoot up?"
"No."
"How do you know he was a junkie?"
"Word gets around."
"Ever see him with any other junkies?"
"Sure."
"Who?"
"I don't know their names."
"Ever see him with a junkie named Larry Byrnes?" Byrnes asked.
Collins blinked.
"I said Larry Byrnes," Byrnes repeated.
"Never heard of him," Collins said.
"Think hard. He's my son."
"No kidding? I didn't think cops had junkie sons."
"Did you happen to see my son on the night of December 17th?"
"I wouldn't know your son from a hole in the wall."
"How about the morning of December 18th?"
"I still don't know him, night or morning. How would I know him?"
"He knew Hernandez."
"Lots of guys knew Hernandez. Hernandez was a pusher, didn't you know that?" Collins paused. "Hell, he even pushed at the Navals."
"We knew it. How'd you know it?"
"I seen him sell a couple of times."
"To whom?"
"I don't remember. Listen, you think I know the names of every junkie in the neighborhood? I never fooled with that crap myself."
"You fooled with it on the twentieth, Collins. Two days after we found Hernandez dead, you were fooling with it."
"This Hemingway kid used to be one of Hernandez' customers."
"Yeah? Maybe he bought that sixteenth from Hernandez' ghost, then."
"He bought it from you."
"You're gonna have a hell of a time proving that, cop."
"Maybe not. We've had a man following you for the past few days."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"So why didn't he pinch me? Listen, you find any stuff on me when you pulled me in? What am I here for, huh? I want a lawyer."
"You're here on suspicion of murder," Byrnes said.
"You mean…" Again, Collins stopped short.
"What, Collins?"
"Nothing. Hernandez hung himself. Just try pinning that one on me."
"Hernandez died of an overdose."
"Yeah? So he was careless."
"Who put that rope around his neck, Collins?"
"Maybe your son did, Lieutenant. How about that?"
"How do you know my rank?"
"What?"
"If you don't know my son, and if you don't know anything about my son, how the hell do you know my rank?"
"One of your bulls called you Lieutenant. What do you think?"
"Nobody's called me anything since you got here, Collins. Now how about it?"
"I guessed. You look like you got leadership qualities, so I figured you were the boss. Okay?"
"Larry says he knows you," Byrnes lied.
"Who's Larry?"
"My son."
"Yeah? Lots of guys know me who I don't know. I'm popular."
"Why? Because you're pushing junk?"
"Only thing I ever pushed was my sister's baby carriage. Get off that kick, cop. It leads nowhere."
"Let's try another kick, Collins. Let's try cards."
"What about them? Want to play some?"
"You ever play cards?"
"Sure, I do."
"You ever play with a kid named Batman Di Luca?"
"Sure."
"Who else was in that game?"
"Which game?"
"The night you played."
"I played cards with Batman a lot. He can't play to save his ass. I always win."
"What's a gunsel, Collins?"
"Huh?"
"A gunsel."
"Oh." Again, Collins blinked. "A guy who's hired to wash somebody."
"Pronounce it."
"Gunsel. Say, what is this, an English class?"
"When did you find o
ut what a gunsel was?"
"I always knew."
"You found out that night of the card game, didn't you?"
"No, I didn't. I always knew."
"Which night, Collins?"
"Huh?"
"You said you knew what a gunsel was before that night of the card game. Which night are we talking about?"
"The… the last time we played, I guess."
"And when was that?"
"About… about two weeks ago."
"And who played?"
"Me, Batman, and another guy."
"Who was the third guy?"
"I don't remember."
"Batman says you brought him down."
"Me? No, it was Batman. I think he was a friend of Batman's."
"He wasn't, and he isn't. Why are you protecting him, Collins?"
"I ain't protecting nobody. I don't even know who the guy was. Listen, I'd still like to know what you're driving at. You guys think—"
"Shut up!"
"Well, I got a right—"
"What happened on that night of the card game?"
"Nothing."
"Who first mentioned the word 'gunsel'?"
"I never heard it mentioned."
"Then why'd you mispronounce it?"
"I didn't mispronounce it."
"You pronounced it correctly?"
"Sure, I did."
"How'd you pronounce it?"
"Gunsel."
"When was this?"
"The night we…" Collins stopped. "Anytime I pronounced it."
"You said it wasn't mentioned on the night of the game."
"I said I never heard it. Maybe it was mentioned, how should I know?"
"If it wasn't mentioned, where'd you get the nickname 'Gonzo'?"
"Gonzo? Who's got a nickname Gonzo? Everybody calls me Dickie."
"Except those three kids who came to make the buy from you."
"Oh? Well, that explains it. You've got the wrong guy. You're looking for a Gonzo. My name is Dickie. Collins. Hey, maybe that's where you slipped up. Collins and Gonzo sound a little—"
"All right, let's cut the crap," Havilland said sharply.
"Well, I…"
"We know what happened at the card game. We know all about the gunsel routine and the way you goofed and called it 'gonzo' and the way it brought down the house, and the way you were called Gonzo the rest of the night Batman told us all about it, and Batman'll swear to it. We figure the rest like this, pal. We figure you used the Gonzo tag when you took over Hernandez' trade because you didn't figure it was wise to identify your own name with your identity as a pusher. Okay, so these kids were looking for Gonzo, and they found him, and one of them bought a sixteenth from you, and he'll swear to that, too. Now how about the rest?"