Cop Out

by Ellery Queen

  “Go on, Mr. Malone!”

  A hundred yards shy of the turnoff from the Hollow road to The Pike, Malone pulled the Saab over and killed his engine.

  The envelope was cheap supermarket stuff but the note-paper was heavy and had a gold GV monogram on it and a powerful perfume. The envelope was postmarked jersey city n.j. 23 oct, the return address at the upper left said “G. Vanderbilt, care P.O. General Delivery, Boston, Mass. 02100.” The letter was less than a month old, just what the doctor ordered, a recent specimen, God knows I’m no expert, but this ought to do it.

  From bitter compulsion he read the letter. It was full of news that couldn’t be pinned down: her “job” (without specification-and what sort of job would it be that spanned Jersey City and Boston?-that wasn’t very smart, Miss Vanderbilt), her “loaded boy friend” (no name), the glamorous nightspots, the marvelous clothes, the great times, and so on and on, no mention of a Furia or a Hinch or the grimy life the threesome must lead… all of it a fairy tale to impress the yokel kid sister (like the elegant stationery) and maybe get her to follow Goldie Vanderbilt’s example and split from the old family homestead out of some vicious need to corrupt Nanette and break what was left of the Vorsheks’ hearts.

  The bitch.

  The only good thing was that she wasn’t fooling anybody but herself. Maybe Nanette once felt envious, swallowing the fairy tales, but not any more; she knew it was all made up. She probably looked forward to the perfumed letters the way she did to a rerun of Snow White or a costume movie in bigger-than-life Panavision.

  Malone put the letter carefully away, started the Saab, and drove on into town.

  * * *

  He waited on the three-seater leatherette bench outside the steel railing while Wally Bagshott turned down a nervous young couple for a personal loan. Wallace L. Bagshott was president of The Taugus County National Bank, founded by his great-grandfather in the days of the granite quarry and the hitching post. A Bagshott had settled New Bradford; the old Bagshott house, dated 1694, still overlooked the Green, a historic showplace opened to the public one day a year. The double statue on the Green of Zebediah and Zipporah Bagshott, known to the town as the Zizzes, was the favorite privy of the starlings.

  “Wes, boy.” Bagshott had ushered the young couple out and was smiling over at Malone. “You want to see me?”

  Malone jumped up. The banker was tanned halfway up his scalp, a result of spending all his free time hacking divots out of the New Bradford golf course. His employees called him “Smiley” behind his back and his customers “Wally the Knife,” on explosive occasions to his face.

  “Hey, you look like you’re in line for a couple of Purple Hearts. What happened to you?”

  “Believe it or not, I fell down the stairs. Wally-”

  “What you doing out of uniform? John fire you I hope I hope? You know my standing offer-”

  “I’m off duty,” Malone said, going through the gate. “Wally, I have to talk to you.”

  “Squattee voo.” The banker sat down, still smiling. “Though if it’s about a personal loan, Wes, I’ve got to tell you right off-”

  “It’s not about a loan.”

  “That’s a load off. The way things are we’re having to tighten up. Well! Sit down, Wes.” Malone sat down. “How’s the better half? That’s one damn fine piece you grabbed off. Every time Ellen comes in my tellers get all worked up. And not just my tellers if you know what I mean. Haha.”

  “Look, Wally,” Malone said.

  “No offense, Wes, no offense. Share the wealth is my motto. Talking about that, terrible thing about Tom Howland, isn’t it? They say he was in on it.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Wally, I need a favor.”

  “Oh?” Bagshott immediately stopped smiling.

  “I’d like to inspect your safe deposit records.”

  “What for?”

  “I can’t tell you anything about it. Except that it’s important.”

  “Well, I don’t know. You’re out of uniform-”

  “Let’s say it’s undercover work.”

  “No kid?” The banker leaned forward eagerly. “It’s about this stickup, isn’t it?”

  Malone was quiet.

  “Well, if you can’t. Okay, Wes, I don’t see why not, seeing you’re an officer of the law.”

  “One thing, Wally. I’ve got to ask you to keep this absolutely to yourself.”

  “You knew me, pal.” Bagshott winked. “Tightest snatch in town.”

  He waved his Masonic ring and led the way to the rear of the bank. He dismissed the woman on duty in the Safe Deposit Department and unlocked a drawer.

  “Here’s the check-in card.”

  “The one they sign when they want to get into their box?”

  “Isn’t that what you want to see?”

  “Yes. But I’m also interested in your latest applications for box rentals.”

  “How far back you want to go?”

  “Yesterday.”

  The banker looked startled. “Yesterday?”

  Malone nodded.

  “You mean to say-?”

  “I’m not meaning to say anything. Just let me have them, would you mind?”

  Bagshott took out three cards. He was so conscious of the hot breath of crime that he broke his own rule about never allowing himself to look worried. “Three new boxes rented yesterday,” he said with a careful look around. “They haven’t even been put in the master file yet.”

  “I’d like to take these into one of the rooms.”

  “Good idea. Sure thing.”

  “Alone.”

  Bagshott frowned. Then he walked quickly away.

  Malone went into the nearest unoccupied cubicle and shut the door. He sat down at the desk and pulled the light chain and spread the cards and took Goldie’s letter from his pocket.

  He spotted it at once. “Georgette Valencia, The Cascades, Southville.” The Cascades was a twenty-year-old housing development straddling the town line, in an unincorporated village policed on contract by the New Bradford department. Malone knew every family in the Southville district. No one of that name lived there. So the “Georgette Valencia” was a phony.

  For confirmation, the Gs and Vs in the signatures on the application and check-in cards were identically formed with those in Goldie’s letter, the Gs with a squared-off bottom line instead of the usual curve, the Vs like hasty checkmarks. Even the small ts were the same, with the crossmarks tilted downward from right to left in a fancy swash.

  No doubt about it, Georgette Valencia was Goldie Vorshek, alias Goldie Vanderbilt.

  So I doped it right. Goldie hijacked the stolen payroll and stashed it in the one place where nobody else could get to it, a safe deposit box in the bank.

  So now I’ve got the money back.

  Well, not exactly got it back, but I know where I can lay my hands on it.

  Not exactly lay my hands on it, unless…

  Malone stowed the letter away, gathered up the cards, turned off the light and went out into the banking room. Bagshott was alone at his desk, talking on the phone. The moment he saw Malone he hung up. Malone laid the cards on the desk and said, “I’d like to get into one of your boxes.”

  The banker looked around. “Sure, Wes,” he said. “Sit down, make it look natural. I mean sure, soon as you bring me the court order.”

  Malone lowered himself into the chair, holding onto the corner of Bagshott’s desk. “You won’t let me see it without the judge’s authorization?”

  “I can’t, Wes. You know the law.”

  “Well, how about these cards? If I could just borrow them for a few hours-”

  Bagshott stared. It was his banker’s stare, the fish eye. “There’s something funny about this. You trying to pull something, Wes? You know I can’t let any official records out of the bank. What’s going on?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Which box is it?”

  Malone got up and walked out.

 
; * * *

  He drove over to Elwood’s and sank onto a stool. The breakfast rush was over and the diner was almost empty. He was grateful that no one had the juke box going. His head was kicking up a storm.

  He was famished. He had not been conscious of his hunger until this moment. I haven’t eaten in how long is it?

  “Morning, morning, Wes,” Elwood said, slapping his rag around. “Some excitement.”

  “I can live without it, Ave,” Malone said. “Double o.j., wheats and sausage, stack of toast, coffee.”

  “You sound starved,” the old man cracked. “Like it’s your last meal.”

  Malone tried to appreciate the joke.

  “And peaked, too. Damn shame how they run you boys ragged.” Elwood went into his kitchen wagging his head.

  Run ragged.

  That’s for sure, Ave.

  What do I do now?

  I can’t go to the judge without telling him why I want the order, and if I do that I set Ellen and Bibby up for cemetery plots. Judge Trudeau is a stickler for the law books, people don’t mean a goddam to him, he’d have the house surrounded by state police in ten minutes. So I can’t get into the box. I can’t produce the money for Furia.

  I can’t even take possession of the bank forms that along with Goldie’s letter would show Furia she rented the safe deposit box. And without proof that she doublecrossed him he wouldn’t believe me, it would be my word against hers, and I don’t go to bed with him. He’d get so worked up about what he’d think was a stall he’d likely shoot the three of us on the spot.

  So where do we go from here.

  Nowhere.

  End of the line.

  There’s just so much a man can do by himself.

  It came to Malone suddenly that he had just thought a profound thought. It was the exact story of his life.

  Ellen didn’t start calling me The Malone Ranger just for laughs. She tagged me good from the start. Wes Malone against the world and to hell with you, neighbor. Malone the on-his-own-two-feet guy, he asks nothing from nobody. Not even from the only man in the world he respects and trusts. Too proud, that’s Loney. Maybe too sore at the whole raw deal that began with the old man crawling into the sack every night giving nothing to anyone, not so much as a word or a look, and the mother cursing her life and taking with both tobacco-stained hands. So you grow up giving in spite of yourself.

  Giving is giving out.

  Taking is giving in.

  Giving-out keeps you on top of the enemy.

  Giving-in is crawling on your belly to the sonofabitch world.

  Or is it? Is it being a loser to ask for a helping hand when you can’t make it any more on your own? What the hell else is the Marine buddy system but I’m-right-here-brother?

  That’s why I was a lousy grunt.

  That’s why I’m a lousy cop and husband and father. That’s why John and Ellen look at me the way they do sometimes, Bibby’s too young to know better.

  I’ve been kidding myself. And shortchanging them.

  But there’s the but.

  Can I do it?

  My whole life says no.

  My whole life is my bag, that’s been my hangup. Now I’ve got to. No choices left. My back to the wall and Ellen’s and Bibby’s, too.

  Their whole lives are on the line.

  That’s what it comes down to.

  Malone looked up at the diner clock.

  Ten minutes past eleven.

  Less than two hours to putup time.

  He dropped a couple of one-dollar bills on the counter not bothering to wait for change I might chicken. And ran.

  * * *

  John Secco got up and took a few turns. He hated his private office and spent as little time as possible in it. It was down the hall from the three cells and it was not much bigger than they were, whitewashed brick walls and nothing on them, the only real difference was a door instead of bars. He looked tired, almost as tired as Malone.

  Malone watched him.

  After the third turn Malone said stiffly, “If you want my badge, John.”

  The chief stopped. He had black brows under the gray thatch and they went up like windowshades. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know I ought to have come to you right off. Any way I slice it I’m an officer of the law-”

  “Any way you slice it you’re Ellen’s husband and Barbara’s father. What kind of a man do you think I am? I’d have done the same thing.” He dropped into his swivel chair and leaned back from the steel desk. “We’ve got to think this out, Wes. We can’t afford a mistake.”

  “God, no,” Malone said.

  “The first problem is Ellen and Barbara. And you, if you go back.”

  “No if, John. I can’t leave them there alone.”

  Secco nodded slowly. His face reflected his father’s pastures, full of steel ruts and the patience of livestock. “The question is, Wes, how to capture those three without endangering the lives of you and your family.”

  “That isn’t the question at all,” Malone said. “I started out thinking that way, too. It can’t be done.”

  The chief seemed about to argue. But he did not. “What do you mean it can’t be done?”

  “There’s no way,” Malone said. “Believe me, John. As long as they’ve got the guns and Ellen and Bibby there’s no way. Any move we make they’ll shoot them. Or threaten to unless we let them make a getaway, using Ellen and Bibby as shields. Either way they’re goners. Furia’s got nothing to lose. He’s in for one murder, he may as well be in for three or four. You don’t know this man, John. Any way this thing winds up, Furia’s going to go out shooting. I doubt he can be taken alive.”

  Secco said quietly, “What do you suggest, Wes?”

  “The money. Give him the money.”

  Secco looked away.

  “Get it out of the safe deposit box. If you talk to him, maybe Judge Trudeau will play ball. He owes you, John, if not for you he’d never have made judge. So get Trudeau’s order and get the money out of the box and offer Furia the twenty-four thousand in exchange for Ellen and Bibby. Give him a safe conduct and time for a getaway. The money is what he wants. It’s the only deal he’ll make.”

  Malone stopped, exhausted.

  The chief said nothing.

  “You won’t buy it,” Malone said.

  “No, I won’t, Wes. Do you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s not in my power to do what you want. That payroll belongs to Aztec.”

  “The hell with Aztec!”

  “It’s not that simple,” Secco said. “I guess I’d feel the way you do if I were in your spot, Wes. But I have the legal responsibility. Even if I were willing to do it, it isn’t my money to dispose of.”

  “Then put it up to Curtis Pickney! What the hell is twenty-four thousand dollars compared to two lives? Even Pickney ought to be able to see that!”

  “It doesn’t belong to Pickney, either. It belongs to his company. It really wouldn’t be Aztec’s decision, either. They’re insured against robbery and theft, so it’s the insurance company that’s holding the bag. Can you see an insurance company authorizing a deal with a payroll robber at their own expense? Wes, you’re dreaming. If you weren’t so desperate you’d realize it.”

  “You’ve got to do this for me, John,” Malone said hoarsely. “I don’t care whose money it is. If I could borrow twenty-four thousand dollars from the bank or a personal finance company I’d do it in a shot, even if it meant going into hock for the rest of my life. But you know Wally Bagshott or nobody would lend a man with my salary and no collateral that kind of money. Even selling my house wouldn’t do any good, I have less than six thousand dollars’ equity in it. That Aztec payroll is all I’ve got to bargain with! John, for God’s sake.”

  John Secco shook his head. His eyes were screwed up as if the sun were in them.

  “You won’t do it for me.” Malone cracked his knuckles, not knowing he was doing it. “The first
time I’ve ever asked you or anybody for a goddam thing and you won’t do it!”

  “I can’t do it,” Secco said. “I’m the police officer in charge of law enforcement in New Bradford, Wes, I’ve got a sworn duty. I can’t take somebody else’s money and make a dicker with a gang wanted for murder and robbery-I’d be open to indictment for conspiracy and grand larceny myself. And even if I did it, do you think this gang would trust a police chief to hold up his end of such a deal? They’d still take Ellen and Barbara as hostages for their getaway. No, there’s got to be some other way-”

  The telephone rang.

  “Yes?” Secco said. His face turned to stone. “Yes, he’s here, Ellen.”

  Malone gaped.

  “Wes.” Secco held out the phone.

  “Ellen,” Malone said in a whisper. “What is it?”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you all over town.” He did not recognize her voice, it was inhuman, something out of a machine. “They’ve left.”

  “Left.”

  “Furia got nervous. He decided he couldn’t trust you. That woman worked on him. So they left. They took Bibby with them.”

  “Let me get this.” Malone ran the back of his hand over his forehead. “They took Bibby… “

  Now she was crying.

  “Honey. Please. Did they say where to make contact with them? Did they go back to the cabin at the Lake?”

  “I don’t know, Loney, I don’t know… “

  “Ellen, you’ve got to stop crying a minute, I’ve got to know exactly what they said. They must have said something.”

  “Furia said you’re to have the money by noon tomorrow here in the house and wait with it till they get in touch with us he didn’t say when and no police he said or we’ll never see Bibby again, not even her body, it’s our last chance he said… “

  “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  Malone hung up.

  “I heard it,” Chief Secco muttered. “I’ll give you all the time you want, Wes, I won’t make a move or say a word to anybody about this without your permission and if there’s any way I can help, I mean except… “

  “Go to hell,” Malone said, and walked out.