Five O'Clock Lightning

by William L. DeAndrea

  Miss Tilton had said seven words all night: “Thank you,” when Garrett had pulled out a chair for her, and “Roast beef sandwich and coffee,” when a cop had taken orders for supper. She betrayed not the slightest grief over her employer’s death. She had a sexy voice, Garrett decided. But what a cold comfort she must be to a man.

  The biggest reaction of the night had come from young Gary Danziger, who cried all the while he gave his testimony. Yes, he had seen the hot-dog man. Yes, he had seen the dead man, only he thought he was asleep. Yes, he knew who killed the dead man.

  No, he wouldn’t say.

  Captain Murphy had the kid’s grandfather taken away. He pleaded. He cajoled. He threatened. Gary stood there with his baseball in his glove and cried.

  Finally Murphy told the kid it was his duty as an American to speak up. This really turned on the waterworks. Finally, after Murphy had promised the kid that if he wasn’t a good American, he’d be sent to a foreign country where there was no baseball, and he’d never see his Mommy or his dog again, Gary revealed the name of the killer. “It’s Mickey Mantle,” he sniffed.

  8

  Gary had heard Mantle’s conversation with another man, a man who wasn’t a baseball player. They’d talked about a man named Simmons, a man Mickey Mantle didn’t like. The man on the radio said Simmons was the dead man. Gary’s grandfather had said a red person had killed this Mr. Simmons. Mickey Mantle told the other man that he was red. That’s how Gary knew. It made him sad, because he liked Mickey Mantle, and now Mickey Mantle was going to hate him.

  Garrett did some rapid explaining, including the etymology and use of the term “red ass.” All the cops nodded, but Garrett got the feeling that it was very lucky for Mickey that he had been halfway to second base—and in front of thousands of witnesses—when the fatal shots were fired.

  As it was, Garrett thought as he crossed from Pelham to the Bronx, the cops still had it on the agenda to talk to Mickey before the Yankees left on their road trip Monday.

  Garrett’s first stop was Bronx Homicide, where he was briefed by Detective Martin.

  “I don’t know why the captain is telling all this to a suspect ...” The Negro detective paused and peered at Garrett, waiting for a reaction. Garrett disappointed him; Martin went on, “... but here goes. Simmons’s brother finally came across with the news that the congressman was at the ball park to pick up evidence of Communists in baseball. Somebody sent him tickets and told him to wait to be approached.”

  “He was approached, all right,” Garrett said. He didn’t usually wisecrack in a situation like that, but he wanted the other man to see how little it bothered him to be called a suspect.

  “Yeah,” Detective Martin said. “Easy to see he was double-crossed.”

  “They have no idea who sent the letter?”

  “Nope,” Martin consulted a report. “Nope. The brother and the secretary say a second letter was ‘withheld by Rex, because of some fool notion he was protecting us from something,’ end of quotation. The first letter wasn’t signed, the secretary says.” Suddenly the detective grinned. “I saw you looking at her last night.”

  “So?” Garrett asked. “She’s worth looking at.”

  “Damn straight. I understand you’ve met this bunch before.”

  “Briefly,” Garrett said. “I played ball in Kansas City. The congressman and the ball club would occasionally use each other to get a little publicity.

  “Listen,” Garrett went on, “this business about Reds in baseball is really going to spoil the commissioner’s day. My commissioner, I mean. Is there anything concrete you’ve turned up we should know about?”

  Detective Martin was still grinning and showing his white teeth. “Well, Telford and Miss Tilton both say that no names were mentioned but that the letter specifically implied your pal Mickey Mantle was involved somehow.”

  “Did it ever occur to you,” Garrett said through his teeth, “that the whole business was a trap for Simmons? That Mantle might have been mentioned in the letter, or hinted at, or whatever the hell he was, specifically to get Simmons interested? Anyone who reads the papers knows how Simmons was after Mickey’s tail back in ’51 over that draft thing and how Simmons lost out. He’d jump through a hoop if he thought he had a chance to prove something bad about Mickey.”

  Detective Martin had been perching on Captain Murphy’s desk. Now he got up, walked behind it, sat in a creaky swivel chair, and shook his head. “Damn, Garrett, now I owe Vicious a beer.”

  “What are you talking about?” Garrett demanded.

  “The captain bet me you’d spot that right off. He says you have a natural talent for that sort of thing.”

  “How does he know? He never knew I existed until yesterday.”

  “Old friend told me about you. Captain Murphy came through the door with a couple of folders in his hand. He growled at Martin to get the hell out of his seat, then took his place behind the desk.

  He told Garrett that a pal of his, a former New York cop, was the colonel of military police who had investigated a morphine theft ring at the hospital while Garrett was a patient there. “He says you asked to see him one day and you laid the answer right in his lap.”

  Garrett shrugged it off. “I had nothing to do, so I spent my time looking at the nurses. I noticed one nurse was a thirty-four C when she made her morning rounds and a thirty-six D in the afternoon. Then, when word went around morphine was missing, it just seemed obvious.

  Murphy looked thoughtful. “So that’s why that stupid jerk was laughing all the time he was telling me how you ‘busted’ the case. He says you helped him out a couple of other times, too.”

  Garrett didn’t know what to say. “We just talked. I try to be analytical. I think I might go to law school.”

  “Just what I need,” Murphy sighed. “Another smart lawyer. Look, if it’s good enough for my pal, picking your brain is good enough for me. That’s why I asked Mr. Ford Frick to make you our baseball contact in this case. I personally know nothing about baseball; you have inside knowledge. I don’t know exactly how you can help, or even if you can, but I want you available. This is a hot case, and I’m not ignoring anything. Okay?”

  Garrett told him it was okay. “Does this mean I’m not a suspect?”

  “No,” Murphy told him. “But this does.” He held up one of the folders. “Report from the New Jersey State Police. They stopped the killer on the Jersey Turnpike yesterday, but he got away. Disappeared. Left his car and his gun behind—the same gun that killed Simmons, ballistics has already checked it out. He also left bullets in a Jersey trooper. Shot him twice—seems to be a habit of his. Those bullets,” Murphy growled, “also match up. So our square-jawed beauty is ready to shoot anybody. For all we know, he’s got the whole House of Representatives on the agenda.”

  “What time was the shooting in Jersey?” Garrett wanted to know.

  “A little before six.”

  Garrett nodded. “That’s why I’m in the clear. I was at the stadium being interviewed by you at the time. I guess it clears all the other witnesses, too. Right?”

  Murphy rubbed his cheeks. “Well, maybe I was a little hasty. There is such a thing as a conspiracy, you know.” He sighed. He wished the people in the stadium yesterday were completely in the clear. Not only was it a big boost to an investigation to get someone—anyone—eliminated from suspicion; clearing the folks at the stadium would mean he could stop worrying about the Vitiello kid. If there was one thing opera needed in this country, it was a good American tenor. No candidate should be wasted; it would be a shame if Murphy had to put one in jail. ...

  But Garrett was saying something.

  “What’s that?” Murphy wanted to know.

  “I said, I don’t know anything about the people on this list Martin gave me to look at. I mean, I recognize some from the newspapers, but that’s about it.”

  Murphy was surprised to learn he’d been musing so long—that was a long list. It was Telford Simmons’s ros
ter of everyone who had threatened the life of Congressman Rex Harwood Simmons over the past couple of years. There was another list, a much lengthier one, of people Telford and Miss Tilton thought had hated the late congressman. He told Garrett about it.

  “Mickey Mantle’s on that list,” the captain added.

  Garrett’s handsome face reddened. “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Will you lay off Mickey? He didn’t have anything to do with this and you know it.”

  “And you know I can’t lay off anybody, Garrett. Not in this case or in any homicide.”

  “I know, dammit, I know.” Garrett’s face was twisted in a tight frown. “Look, do you plan to talk to Mantle this afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me go with you.”

  Detective Martin made a disgusted noise. “You know that’s out of the question, Garrett. Don’t let this liaison thing go to your head, you know? This is still official police business.”

  Garrett ignored him and concentrated on the captain, who had remained silent. “Captain, Mantle is sensitive, and kind of hotheaded. If he thinks he’s being persecuted—which God knows he has a right to feel—he’ll either clam up or he’ll say wild stuff that’ll only get him in trouble and won’t help your investigation one damn bit. But if I go with you and vouch for you, I can keep him from doing anything foolish, and we’ll all be a lot better off.”

  Martin looked impatient. He was going to tell Garrett nothing doing, but a wave from Captain Murphy cut him off. Murphy brooded about it for a while. His meditations were punctuated by little grunts.

  At last he said, “Garrett, do you have a radio in your car?”

  “What? Oh, yeah. I do. Why?”

  “Never mind. You can come along. I’ll go in your car. Martin can follow in the department car.”

  It was arranged that Garrett would meet the captain back here when he’d finished his report for Mr. Frick. The young man left Bronx Homicide, still not knowing why having a radio in his car suddenly qualified him to go along with the police. He wasn’t aware that WQXR was having a program of recordings by Caruso that Captain Vicious Aloysius Murphy didn’t want to miss.

  9

  ... Yes, I lost my little darlin’ the night they were playin’ the bee-yoo-tee-ful Tennessee Waltz ...

  Damn, Garrett thought as he corrected the last of his typing errors, I’m being haunted by Patti Page. Let me start any sort of routine work, and she springs into my mind in full harmony and hi-fi. Well, it could be worse, he thought. Johnny Ray, or some of that bebop stuff he couldn’t understand.

  There were a lot of things he couldn’t understand. Like how he got into these things. All of a sudden he was working for the Commissioner of Baseball, helping the police, and playing big brother to Mickey Mantle, who could probably take perfectly good care of himself.

  Garrett stacked the pages of his report and left them neatly in a desk drawer. The commissioner was going to take gas Monday when he read it. Garrett could only hope the session with Mantle went okay.

  The Rockefeller Plaza offices of Major League Baseball were not idle on Sunday. There were always people standing by to receive results of the games around the leagues and prepare the latest standings and statistics. So Garrett wasn’t surprised, as he picked up his hat and prepared to leave, that there was someone walking around outside his office door. He was surprised, though, when he opened the door to see it was Tad Simmons who’d been doing the walking.

  “Hello, Garrett,” Simmons said with a false amiability that set Garrett’s teeth on edge. “Finished? I didn’t want to interrupt. Shall we go into your office and talk?”

  “How’d you get in?”

  “I told the guard I had an appointment with you. The police told me you might be here.”

  “Did they tell you I’m going to meet them again?”

  Tad Simmons’s foxy face split into a wide grin, a genuine one this time. Garrett didn’t like it any better than the old one.

  “No, they didn’t, but I like it. It’ll fit in nicely with what I have in mind.”

  “I don’t know what you have in mind, but I’m just on my way out, so if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Inside, Garrett. I mean it.” The grin was gone from Tad’s face, replaced by a look of such menace that Garrett was curious to see what it was all about. He opened the door, waved Tad Simmons to a seat, took off his hat, and reseated himself behind his desk.

  “I’m leaving for Missouri this afternoon,” Tad told Garrett. “Jefferson City. The governor is going to appoint me to serve out my brother’s term.”

  “Congratulations,” Garrett said.

  “He doesn’t like me much, the governor doesn’t, but he didn’t have much choice. The people would have had his neck if he hadn’t decided to appoint me to carry on my brother’s work.”

  Simmons paused, seemed to think a comment was called for at this point. Garrett didn’t give him one.

  Simmons went on. “I want my brother’s killer, Garrett.”

  “Everyone does.”

  “The Communists don’t.”

  “The police do.”

  Simmons leaned forward and slammed his open hand down on Garrett’s desk. “Don’t be so f-f-fucking naive, little boy,” he said. “If the Commies can infiltrate the State Department, the New York police shouldn’t be much of a challenge.”

  Garrett was mad at himself for jumping when Simmons smacked the desk. He resolved to stay calm. “I believe,” he said, “that Captain Murphy would kick your teeth in for a crack like that.”

  “Captain Murphy can shove it,” said the congressman-to-be. “Now you listen to me, Garrett. You have an in on this investigation. I want to know all about it. I want to know what they find out, and I want to know what they’re doing about it. And you’re going to tell me.”

  Garrett raised an eyebrow. “I am?”

  “You are. You’re going to help me make sure nobody gets in the way of a thorough investigation of my brother’s death.”

  “Mr. Simmons, I saw you and your brother at work in K.C. You put on like you were just a two-bit messenger boy, but it didn’t take any great brains to see you ran the show. Your brother may have been able to blame communism for all the bullshit he pulled, but don’t you try it; it just doesn’t sound right from you. Now, it seems to me that you want to be up to date with the police because you want to know how close they’re getting to something you don’t want found out. How does that sound?”

  Tad Simmons didn’t answer him. Instead he said, “The police showed you my list.”

  “So?”

  “You told them you couldn’t help them.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Come off it, Garrett. Jenny Laird’s name was on that list.”

  Garrett started to laugh. “So?”

  “Laugh it up, Garrett,” Tad Simmons told him. “Laugh while you can. Jenny Laird is the widow of David Laird, the Communist writer and teacher at Columbia.”

  “Well, I can see why she might have wanted to kill your brother. Laird committed a messy suicide in a car-crash fire, didn’t he? After your brother got his publisher to cancel his contract, and even Columbia started getting testy? But what’s that got to do with me? I never took classes with Laird, never personally met him or his wife.”

  “Jenny Laird is also,” Tad Simmons went on, “the cousin of Ann Devore, a Communist student leader—”

  “Communist? She circulated a petition supporting the Marshall Plan, for God’s sake—”

  “—a Communist student leader—I have a list of the organizations she belonged to—with whom you lived for a time in the winter of 1950 and 1951, and who died as the result of an illegal abortion.” Simmons looked at Garrett. “Your child, Garrett?”

  “Get out of here,” Garrett said, rising from his chair. “Get out of here before they have to send you to Congress in a box.”

  “Think, Garrett. Think of how it will look if I let this all out. What kind of baseball job will you get? What law
school would have you? What would it do to your parents to find out their all-American boy is secretly a free-loving, baby-killing Commie?”

  “Get out!” Garrett practically screamed. “You’re a liar, and you stink!”

  “Think about it,” Simmons said. “I understand your mother isn’t exactly well.”

  Garrett came from behind the desk. Simmons wore his hateful grin, but he kept backing slowly to the door. “My office will be in touch.”

  Garrett grabbed Tad by the lapels of his jacket and slammed him against the wall. “Listen, you son of a bitch—”

  “No, l-l-little boy, y-you listen!” Tad stammered. “If you hit me you’d better kill me, because if you don’t, I’ll use my last breath to bring your whole world down around you. Starting with your parents.”

  Garrett still had him by the lapels. He trembled with fury.

  “Let me go,” Simmons commanded.

  Garrett let him go.

  Tad Simmons tossed his shoulders, straightened his jacket. “Smart move, Garrett. You’ll hear from me. And no smart business with the police, or you’ll feel like I dropped you from the Washington Monument.”

  Tad let himself out, closed the door behind him.

  It all came back at once, everything he’d gone into baseball to forget. Garrett stood there for a few seconds, then punched the glass out of the door. He buried his face in his bleeding hands and tried to think of a way out.

  Chapter Four

  Errors

  1

  CAPTAIN MURPHY WANTED TO know what happened to his hand.

  Garrett felt the muscles of his face move; he decided his expression was as close to an embarrassed smile as it was going to get and spoke. “I put it through my office door, Captain. Too eager to join you today, I guess.”

  Murphy grunted. “Did Simmons catch up with you?”

  The sun had climbed above the low Bronx skyline. Garrett reached up and pulled down the visor. There were only a few scratches on his hand, but it was still tender.

  “Yes, he caught up with me. Right turn here?”