Crime School

by Carol O’Connell

  Oh, the makeup smudge.

  ‘No problem. I can get that out.’

  ‘Yeah, sure you can.’ The clerk watched the blonde walk away with a black X scrawled on the back of the new suit. Then she turned a merciless eye on the next customer in line, an elderly woman slowly approaching the counter. ‘Move it, lady!’

  Lieutenant Coffey watched the last actress leave the squad room in company with two detectives, the number of men it took to escort a pretty woman downstairs. The deputy commissioner’s son-in-law passed them at the stairwell door, and now he walked toward the private office.

  So Mallory and Riker had managed to lose Deluthe again.

  While the lieutenant checked his list of blondes for the second day of interviews, the younger man stood at a respectful distance and waited to be acknowledged. Coffey liked the deference to rank, but he had his doubts that this youngster was going to make it as a detective.

  ‘I thought you were watching Lars Geldorf’

  ‘He’s staying home today. I’m looking for Sergeant Riker.’

  ‘He’ll be here in half an hour.’ Coffey held up a tabloid with the headline: actress stabbed in broad daylight. ‘Okay, kid, make yourself useful.’ He pointed to the handwritten notes and a telephone number scrawled across the top of the front page. ‘This Midtown precinct never called back with a name on the actress. Find out who she is, then check the interview list. If we haven’t talked to her, get her down here today.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Paper in hand, Deluthe swooped down on the nearest vacant desk and picked up the phone.

  Jack Coffey had only a few minutes to settle in behind his desk before the rookie rapped on the frame of his open office door. The lieutenant waved him inside. ‘What’ve you got, kid?’

  ‘The actress is Stella Small. I talked to a police aide, Eve Forelli. She says it was just a publicity stunt.’

  The lieutenant nodded toward the tabloid in the younger man’s hand. ‘Did you read that article?’

  ‘No, sir. I thought you wanted – ’

  ‘Read it. You’ll find the first mention of blood in the opening paragraph. It’s a puddle on a hotel carpet.’ He leaned over the desk and ripped the paper from Deluthe’s hand, then pointed to the photograph of an unconscious woman. ‘Oh, and the dark stain on her sleeve? That’s blood too.’ He slammed the newspaper down on his desk blotter, yet his voice remained calm. ‘In my experience, very few actresses ever mutilate themselves for a mention in the tabloids.’ And now he stopped, for it was not his job to train the rookie from Lieutenant Loman’s squad. ‘At least you got her name. That’s something.’ He consulted his list of blond interview subjects and found Stella Small among them. ‘Her agent set up an interview, but Small was a no-show. Apparently this woman doesn’t watch the news or read the papers. Find her.’

  ‘The police aide already took her statement,’ said Deluthe. ‘The actress told her she had a street altercation with a tourist. You see, the guy hit this woman with his camera, and she needed a few stitches. That’s it. So then her agent shows up at the hospital and gets the idea to make the wound a little more newsworthy. That’s when it turned into a stabbing.’

  ‘A police aide did the interview? A civilian! Well, that’s just great.’ He tossed the newspaper to the rookie. ‘Get a copy of that statement from Midtown, and get that actress down here.’

  ‘But it’s just – ’

  ‘Busywork? Most of my damn day is busywork. I’m one goddamn busy man. Now can you handle this or not?’ What he had really wanted to ask Deluthe was why the man dyed his hair.

  And of all the colors in the world, why choose glow-in-the-dark yellow?

  Detective Janos stood at the front of the squad room and addressed the rest of the men. ‘We got a thirty-second spot on the morning news and a full minute on radio. We might get lucky with the tip lines.’ He held up the newspaper page that listed the dates and locations of open casting calls. ‘And there’s two auditions today. We got twenty minutes to make the one on – ’

  ‘Hey!’ Detective Desoto, who sorted the tip-line calls, yelled, ‘Listen up! A woman with an X on her back just passed the corner of Sixtieth and Lex. I got a guy calling from a payphone. He says she was headed for the subway. She’s got blond hair, and she’s wearing a light blue suit.’

  ‘A suit,’ said Riker. ‘I’ll bet she’s on her way to the midtown audition.’

  ‘It’s on the West Side.’Janos was heading for the door, issuing orders on the run. ‘Get a unit over there. She’ll make the crossover over at Forty-second Street.’

  ‘Maybe not.’ Arthur Wang grabbed his gun from a desk drawer. ‘If she sees that X on her back, she might pack it in. I know my wife would – ’

  ‘Subway!’ yelled Janos.

  Every man but Deluthe was up and running. Sergeant Riker stopped to tap his shoulder, saying, ‘You’re with us, kid.’

  And they were off. Lieutenant Coffey’s busywork errand was forgotten as Deluthe fell in with the gang of running detectives heading downstairs for the cars. One by one, the unmarked vehicles raced their engines. Mobile turret lights were slapped on to the roofs as they sped down Houston, zooming toward the West Side Highway.

  Heading uptown.

  What a ride!

  The police cars were strung out in a wedge, forcing cabs to dodge and weave, and terrifying the amateur drivers. Five sirens screamed, and bullhorns shouted, ‘Outta the way! Move it! Move it? Every cross-town light was magically green until the convoy pulled to the curb in front of Forty-second Street Station.

  The men left their cars at a dead run, hustling down the subway stairs in close formation, flying through the long tunnel, leather slapping cement, adrenaline rushing, hearts on fire, finally emerging in the shuttle bay.

  Full stop.

  Something’s wrong.

  There were too many people milling around at this time of the morning.

  Three detectives climbed up on a bank of concrete and scanned the heads of waiting straphangers, looking for the blonde with an Xon her back. Six men circled around to the other side of the track to search the rest of the crowd, then returned, heads shaking.

  The woman was not here.

  The surrounding passengers had the makings of a mob, feet stamping, voices rising, tempers close to exploding in the hot muggy air around the shuttle bay. Most had wandered away from the track, but hopefuls still stood on the edge, eyes fixed on the dark tunnel with a New Yorker’s certain knowledge that watchers, not switchmen, made the trains come.

  The crowd was still growing, not conversing but growling, voices rumbling in one sentiment, Death to all transit workers – kill them all. Here and there, a passenger went off like a firecracker, screaming obscenities. It could only be a matter of minutes before the first punch was thrown. This vast space would become a bloodbath from wall to wall.

  Near the police booth, a band of musicians were unpacking instruments and plugging in amplifiers. This was the city’s emergency response to impending violence among disgruntled subway riders.

  Janos folded his cell phone. ‘We got uniforms at the exits. No sign of her yet.’

  Detective Desoto had disappeared into the mob, and now he was running back to them. ‘The good news? A suicide. A jumper got himself smeared across the tracks. All these people are from the rush-hour crowd. That’s how long they’ve been waiting.’

  ‘And now the bad news,’ said Riker.

  ‘They just finished cleaning up all the blood and guts. The shuttles are on the way. We’re gonna lose the whole crowd in five minutes flat.’

  Deluthe understood this worst-case scenario. What were the odds that any of these stressed-out citizens would miss a ride out of hell to talk to a cop? ‘Can’t we just stop the trains?’

  Desoto gave him a look that asked, What hick town are you from“? ‘Maybe you didn’t hear me, kid. The last guy who stopped the trains is dead.’

  ‘We got five minutes,’ said Riker. ‘Deluthe, you work the passengers
near the track. Hit on the women. Men are useless. They only see breasts, not backs. The rest of you guys are with me.’

  The detectives moved in tandem, walking toward the small band of musicians. Their body language changed as they drew closer to the light Latin tempo intended to soothe ugly tempers with the soft strings of a guitar and a bass – and a drummer with nothing to do.

  While Deluthe was taking statements of ‘I didn’t see nobody’ and ‘I don’t know nothin“, Riker was taking a guitar away from one of the teenage musicians.

  Deluthe watched the action through breaks in the crowd near the track. The senior detective’s hand flew up and down the neck of the electric guitar, playing riffs of rock ‘n’ roll, and he was good – damn good. The younger passengers were drifting toward the music, fingers snapping, heads bobbing to the beat – reborn.

  The musicians were playing backup as Riker was gliding and sliding, strings zinging, the crowd cheering. He ripped out notes in a one-handed frenzy as he rolled the other hand toward the band to jump up the tempo. The bassman’s fingers moved faster and faster. The drummer went insane with his sticks, smashing cymbals and beating on skins.

  Janos pulled a woman from the crowd, and now they were gyrating, twirling and writhing. Other detectives grabbed strange females, danced them ragged and discarded them quickly. All the people were in motion; the place was rocking, cooking, jumping. The beat vibrated across the concrete and came up through the soles of Ronald Deluthe’s shoes.

  The crowd formed a ring around Riker, hands clapping, whistling high and shrill. Janos swung a new partner around, then lifted her high off the floor and let her go – airborne. She squealed with delight when he caught her. Riker ripped out another riff, and the crowd went wild. A shower of coins chimed into an open guitar case, and the band went demonic, pushing the tempo, faster, harder, louder. The trains came; the people stayed – stoned on music. The detectives changed partners and fired questions, never losing the beat.

  Two hands shot up with high signs.

  Finale.

  Riker made a cutthroat gesture to the band, and the music died suddenly, as if a door had closed upon it.

  And the world stopped moving.

  The musical detective wiped the sweat from his eyes and took a deep bow to thunderous hand clapping. He turned to Janos, hollering to be heard above the racket, ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘A woman spotted the X. Our blonde didn’t cross over. She stayed on the downtown Lexington line, and she was crying.’

  ‘She’s going home,’ yelled Desoto. ‘Yesterday another woman saw a blonde with an X on her shirt. Now here’s where it gets a little weird. She was fighting off a gang of dead flies in the station at Astor Place, and that’s where she got off the train.’

  Deluthe moved against the flow of boarding passengers and fought his way out of the mob in time to see the squad of detectives flying into the pedestrian tunnel. When he emerged from the subway at street level, the other men were piling into their vehicles. The caravan drove off, sirens squealing, red lights spinning. And the young policeman was left standing alone on the sidewalk, breathless, as if he had also danced to the music of Sergeant Riker’s band.

  CHAPTER 15

  The blinking light on the answering machine was pulsating to the beat of a human heart – Stella’s. The message could only be from the police. They would want to know why she had blown off her appointment at the SoHo station, and she had also missed the morning try-out for a play. Her agent had given her one last chance to redeem herself, a late evening audition, and it was not the standard cattle call. This time, she would be one of four actresses up for the part.

  And Stella had nothing to wear.

  The contents of her closet and drawers were strewn about the apartment in piles of thrift-shop clothes and hand-me-downs. When she wore these garments, they changed her into something lesser, lower. And now, in her mind, she had already failed the last-chance audition. Before day’s end, she would have no career, no agent and no point in living. Stella sat on the edge of the sofa bed, then fell back and stared at the ceiling, eyes wide, unblinking, playing dead -just getting used to the idea.

  The brand-new suit jacket lay on the floor, marred with another X. She had discovered the stain on the subway after removing the jacket to sew on a button. And now her eyes were raw and red from crying. The rent money was gone, and she could not ask for more. The egos of the Abandoned Stellas had been worn away so long ago; they would never understand the fragility of hers and the great importance of a magic mantle of pale blue linen.

  She could not go home to Mom and Gram, though she pined for them. Tomorrow, she would send another postcard, another lie: Fame and fortune can only be hours away. Then she would find a job as a waitress and never tell them that their worst fear had come true.

  Another thought overshadowed failure and the loss of home – the stalker. She could not go to the police for help, not after spinning a lie to get her name in the papers. That woman, Forelli, would have informed them by now. She imagined the police department as a colony of telepathic spiders, all busy weaving traps to catch her. Adding to her crimes against them, she had missed the SoHo interview for vandalized blondes. And now that she had a suit jacket with a legitimate X, she was no better off. The cops would never believe it was the real thing.

  Stella rose from her bed and straightened her spine. She was an actress. She would make them believe her. All it would take was attitude and the right persona, but which one? Turning to the mirror on the wall, she asked, ‘Who am I today?’

  Nobody, said the mirror. You’re just a little girl from Ohio.

  Stella nodded, then picked up the ruined suit jacket and traced the nasty black X with one finger. Every nice thing was ruined in this town, Bitch City.

  Heavy footsteps were coming down the hall. They stopped outside her apartment. The police? She held her breath and played the statue, eyes fixed on a white envelope sliding under her door. It must be a summons. Oh, she was in so much trouble. The footsteps trailed off toward the stairs. Overwhelmed by dread, her feet weighed a hundred pounds, each one, as she approached the envelope on the floor. It was another few minutes before she gave herself up for dead and opened it.

  Impossible.

  It was a gift certificate from a Fifth Avenue department store where she could not afford to breathe the air. So much money. This would replace her ruined suit with something from the designer section – and shoes, new shoes.

  Fifth Avenue was singing to her, Get your tail down to the store, babe.

  On her way out the door, she considered the source of this bounty, quickly ruling out her Sunday school God, Who would not have survived for six minutes in New York City. Her savior could only be an apologetic vandal, a disturbed soap-opera fan who had gone too far and wanted to make amends.

  Blessed are the mental cases.

  Halfway down the stairs she stopped. There was no air-conditioning in the common areas of the building, yet she felt an icy sensation in her chest. In movie lore, scary cold spots marked the presence of haunts in abandoned houses. And women?

  He knows where I live.

  Sergeant Bell sat behind the front desk facing the door of the police station. He was waiting for Lieutenant Coffey’s order to send up the suspect. In peripheral vision, he kept watch over the fireman. Gary Zappata was working the cops in uniform, slapping backs and politicking, though he had never had a single friend in this precinct. The detectives walked in the front door – three of them, if Sergeant Bell counted the whiteshield from the East Side squad. Riker had a few words with Deluthe, who then raced up the staircase to Special Crimes Unit, his feet hitting every third step like a galloping puppy.

  Riker and Mallory were in no hurry as they crossed the wide floor, walking in tandem. They ignored the rookie fireman swaggering toward them.

  Zappata squared off, legs apart, hands on his hips, then yelled, ‘I know what you did to me, Riker! You cheap shit! You snitch!’

&
nbsp; The desk sergeant silently begged, Please, Riker, don’t do anything stupid. It was worth a lawsuit if the detective slugged this man. And perhaps that was what Zappata was hoping for, since he was out of a job with the fire department and could never come back to NYPD.

  The fireman strutted toward the partners. ‘You ratted me out.’ He glared at Riker, then puffed out his chest. ‘You drunken asshole.’ Zappata turned his smug face to Mallory, saying, ‘Well, if it ain’t the Ladies’ Auxiliary. Stay out of my way, bitch.’ He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at the battery of men and women in uniform, as if expecting applause for this very big mistake.

  Mallory never flinched, but Riker’s hands balled into fists. Sergeant Bell thought of calling the lieutenant down to end this before it -

  The desk sergeant looked up to see Jack Coffey standing at the top of the stairs, hands in his pockets, quietly watching.

  The short fireman moved to block Riker’s path.

  Another big mistake.

  ‘You couldn’t face me like a man,’ said Zappata. ‘You back-stabbing piece of crap.’

  The two detectives closed their distance with the fireman.

  Any second now.

  The phones stopped ringing. The only noise came from a civilian clerk, fingers typing, lightly skimming the keys.

  – tap, tap, tap, tap -

  The fireman was playing to his audience of uniforms, and he was so cocky, rocking on his heels, smiling too wide for a man so off balance. The dead silence from the uniforms gave him no clue that Riker was about to pound him into the ground.

  It was not a sucker punch, though Zappata never saw it coming, not from the Ladies’ Auxiliary. One moment he was standing up – Mallory’s fist shot out fast and sure as a hammerfall, and then he was lying on the floor, having a quiet nosebleed.