Doctor, Lawyer . . . (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  Now anger narrowed Vicente’s eyes, hardened his mouth. “Yeah, I’m surprised, Lieutenant. I’m so surprised that I’m going to call my lawyer. Maybe he and I can cook up a little harassment charge. My case is coming up on appeal in three weeks. You could be doing me a favor, coming down on me with all this crap right now.” Mockingly genial, he nodded. “You could be doing me a real big favor. I guess that, really, I should be thanking you.”

  “You’d better tell your lawyer to see me first, Vicente, before he gets carried away with enthusiasm. He might like to check over our evidence. Because we’ve got a lot more than McNally’s and Caulfield’s testimony.” I turned sharply away.

  Instead of using the car’s radio, I went to the nearest box to call Communications. Within moments, Friedman came on the line. “Are you bringing Vicente in?” he asked.

  “No. Not now, anyhow.”

  “Maybe it’s just as well. Those unclassified prints on the two guns weren’t his.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I know it doesn’t. Still—” He let it go unfinished. Then I heard a bell ring, and heard him swear. “There goes my other phone. Honest to God, these tipsters are driving me bananas. I just took a call from Plainfield, New Jersey. Collect.”

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “What’re you going to do now?”

  “I think I’ll come down and talk to Laura Farley.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  Twelve

  RELUCTANTLY, I PUSHED OPEN the door to Captain Rifkin’s reception room. For months I’d been successfully avoiding Laura Farley.

  “Hello, Frank.” Her voice was low, her mouth tight, her eyes inscrutable as she stared at me across her desk. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “How are you, Laura?”

  She ignored the question, saying instead: “I understand you almost got shot the other night.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve never been shot, have you?” It was a deceptively casual question that concealed, I knew, a deep, secret bitterness—wishful thinking, perhaps, thinly disguised. She’d like to see me hurt. Even after two years, she’d like to see me hurt.

  “No, I’ve never been shot.”

  “You’re a survivor, right?”

  “I hope so.”

  “You are, believe me. You’re a survivor.”

  “Listen, Laura. I—”

  “What can I do for you?” She spoke in a low, impersonal voice. She sat rigidly in her chair, back straight, chin disdainfully high. At age thirty-three, she was a good-looking, sensual woman. Her body was exciting: small, but beautifully proportioned. Her face was smoothly modeled, her expression composed, coolly aloof. Yet, just beneath the surface, Laura seethed. Sexually, she was insatiable: demanding everything, giving everything—and nothing.

  As I looked into her unforgiving grey eyes, I realized that I’d momentarily forgotten how I’d intended to begin the interrogation. I saw her lips move in a small, ironic smile. With her unfailing instinct for the fallible, she’d sensed my discomfort.

  Finally, looking just past her, I said, “I want to check on your—ah—procedures.”

  “All right.”

  “The—ah—keys. How’re they handled?”

  The ironic smile widened. “Which keys?”

  “The keys to the property room.” I spoke more sharply: “Someone got into the property room and stole guns. You must’ve heard about it.”

  “Yes, I heard about it.”

  I waited for her to go on, but she said nothing, still sitting as before, staring at me with her cold grey eyes.

  “Listen, Laura”—I leaned forward, resting both palms flat on her desk—“I need some information—and I don’t have the time to fish for it. Someone must’ve got the keys, and had them duplicated. I need to know how and who and when.”

  She raised her shoulders, shrugging languidly. She wore a soft beige sweater, provocative but not too revealing. Laura didn’t make a public display—didn’t squander herself. “I don’t know what happened to the keys.”

  “You know what could’ve happened to them.” The door from Laura’s office to Captain Rifkin’s was open. Through the open door I could see the safe: a machined metal door, about three by five feet, set flush with the wall behind Rifkin’s desk. “I’d like your opinion,” I finished.

  She allowed a last deliberate moment of mocking silence to pass, then said, “All right. My opinion is very simple. I think that one of your very clever police officers jimmied our outer door”—she pointed—“and then he jimmied Captain Rifkin’s door. Then I think he opened the safe, somehow, and took the keys. The rest was easy.”

  “That’s a pretty talented officer you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe. But I’ve been working here long enough to figure out that there isn’t much difference between the cops and the robbers. They’ve got a—a working relationship. A cop is a better cop if he knows how a robber thinks—and works. So why shouldn’t a cop know how to open a safe?”

  Ruefully, I half laughed. “I can’t argue with you, I guess. Except that opening a safe isn’t something that everyone knows how to do. Personally, I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “But you’re an upright type, Frank. You’re Mr. Clean.” She spoke with a soft, subtle venom.

  “But all cops aren’t Mr. Clean. Is that it?”

  “You know that’s it. A cop can get anything he wants from a criminal, once the criminal’s taken a fall, and he’s looking for a deal that’ll keep him out of jail. So why shouldn’t a cop trade a deal for safe-cracking instructions?”

  “All right, let’s assume we’ve got a cop who can open safes. How do you think he did it?”

  “That’s easy. Cops—especially detectives—are around all day long. And all night, too. It would be very simple for one of them to get in here after we’ve gone home. Then he’d have all night to get into the safe, and get the keys and make impressions.”

  “Can you open the safe?” I asked. “Do you know the combination?”

  Her smile was condescending. “No.”

  “Have you ever been in here alone when the safe’s been open—when Rifkin left it open?”

  Now the condescending smile soured contemptuously. “Are you saying that I could be the Masked Man, Frank? Is that what it’s all about?”

  “Listen, Laura, just answer the—”

  “The answer is no.”

  “Does Captain Rifkin ever leave the safe open, to your knowledge?”

  For a moment she didn’t reply. Then, speaking slowly, she said, “Captain Rifkin is in and out of the office all day long. He never leaves the safe open—physically open. But”—again she hesitated—“I happen to know that normally he doesn’t twirl the combination knob until the end of the day—not unless he’s leaving for several hours.”

  “Does Captain Rifkin realize that you know he doesn’t always lock the safe?”

  “I couldn’t say. I doubt it. But you have to realize that, really, there isn’t anything very valuable in our safe. It’s mostly keys and files—housekeeping things. They’re valuable to the Department, but not to anyone else.”

  “You handle stolen money, though, don’t you?”

  “We never keep it overnight. Except for sample bills, it all goes to the night depository. As long as I’ve been here, we’ve never had more than two hundred dollars overnight.”

  “Have you missed any money in the last six months?”

  “As far as I know, we’ve never missed any money.”

  I moved around her desk, gesturing to Rifkin’s office. “Mind if I look around?”

  “Would it make any difference?” The bitter, patronizing note was back in her voice.

  Ignoring the barb, I walked into Rifkin’s spacious corner office. As I stood in front of the safe, I heard Laura come into the room and stand close behind me. It was, I knew, a deliberate move. She knew that I was physically aware of her. Did s
he also know that I was breathing a little faster?

  I stepped to the safe and tried the handle. The door wouldn’t budge; the safe was locked. Still conscious of Laura’s closeness, I moved a few steps toward Rifkin’s desk, then turned toward her. She half pivoted to face me, standing with her arms crossed beneath her breasts, legs slightly spread. In her eyes, I clearly saw a challenge. Laura hadn’t changed.

  As I looked away, I searched for something to change the mood—to break the erotic tension that she’d somehow generated between us.

  “How does your routine go?” I asked. “How do the keys get from this safe to the property room?”

  “Every morning Captain Rifkin opens the safe. Then Mobley and Jamison come in and pick up their keys. They each have two keys—one key to the hallway door of the property room, and one key that fits the inner door. The keys to the outer door are identical. The keys to the inner door aren’t identical. So it takes two keys to open the inner door. And it’s a specially made, reinforced steel and fiberglass door, two inches thick. It’s jimmy-proof.”

  I frowned. “That doesn’t square with what happened this morning. I got to the property room a little after nine. Jamison was there, but Mobley wasn’t. He hadn’t come on duty yet, I gathered. But Jamison opened the inner door.”

  “That was because Chief Dwyer had to open the safe this morning, and he didn’t have time to wait for Mobley.”

  “Chief Dwyer?”

  She nodded. “Besides Captain Rifkin, Chief Dwyer is the only one who knows the combination to this safe. He got the keys out and gave them to me—in Jamison’s presence—and I gave them both to Jamison.” She shrugged. “It’s not strictly according to the rules, but sometimes the rules are too clumsy. The point to remember, though, is that the keys are always handed over in the presence of at least one witness. It’s the same procedure they use in banks, opening the vault.”

  Nodding absently, I allowed my gaze to travel to the safe, then to the door, then indecisively back again.

  Was Laura right? Had a policeman—a detective, probably—actually come here and opened the safe and started a train of events that had ended in a murder-extortion plot?

  It seemed incredible—totally unbelievable.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” I mused. “None of it makes sense.”

  “I think,” she said, speaking with cool detachment, “that some cop just came up a little short of money, and decided to steal a few guns, and maybe some other things, and sell them to the underworld.”

  “What about narcotics, though? That would be an easier score.”

  “Not really. There’s a perpetual inventory kept on narcotics. Those guns could have been gone for months. Jamison and Mobley are taking inventory right now, and I’m going down to help them. I think we’ll find several guns missing. Dozens, maybe.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked, watching her closely.

  She shrugged. “It’s just a feeling. A hunch.”

  “In the past few months,” I said, “has anything unusual happened in connection with your routine?”

  She took a long, provocative moment to think about it, posing for me. Then she languidly shook her head. “Not that I can—”

  Rifkin’s phone suddenly rang on the desk beside her. She lifted the receiver with a single smooth sweep of her arm, listened, then handed the phone to me.

  “This is Communications, Lieutenant,” a voice said in my ear. “Will you hold on for a moment? We’ve got a field communication for you.”

  “Yes. All right.”

  A moment later I heard Culligan’s static-blurred voice saying, “Lieutenant?”

  “Yes.”

  “We just got what sounds like a pretty good tip on Royce. He’s supposed to meet a gun dealer out at Hunter’s Point in about an hour. Do you want me to pick you up?”

  “Yes.”

  Thirteen

  EYES CLOSED, I SAT in the back of the cruiser. In front, Canelli was driving. Culligan was monitoring the radio—and listening to Canelli.

  “I’ve got to admit,” Canelli said as he looked first down one side of the street, then down the other, “that Hunter’s Point makes me jumpy. Ever since they had those riots out here, it’s made me jumpy. I mean, my God, there I was in a helmet and a flack vest—with a rifle in my hands. An M-16. I mean, I didn’t even know how to get the safety off the damn thing, and there I was getting shot at.”

  “What’d you do?” Culligan asked diffidently.

  “I ducked, that’s what I did. I mean, the crap was really coming down that night. It was a war.”

  “I know,” Culligan answered. “I was here, too.” He pointed ahead, adding laconically, “I was right up there, on the left. We were supposed to protect that Ford Agency there from looters. All I had was one man. One man and two shotguns.”

  “How’d you do?”

  “Well, they still had all the cars they started with, the next morning.”

  Canelli drove for a half block in silence, then said, “I get the same feeling in Hunter’s Point that I get in Watts, you know? I mean, they both keep going—and going. You take the Fillmore, for instance. In the Fillmore, it’s heavy, all right. No doubt about that. But at least, in the Fillmore, you know that if you go a couple of blocks, you’re out of it. And they know it, too. So the Fillmore is a different game. It—it’s like tag, I guess you’d say, in the Fillmore. You tag a guy, then you duck. It’s the same in the Tenderloin. But out here”—Canelli shook his head—“out here you drive for miles, and all you see is trouble.”

  Grunting agreement, Culligan turned to look out the window. Eyes still closed, I tried to sort out my thoughts—tried to make some sense out of the puzzle. It had been five days—a working week—since I’d gone out on the Ainsley homicide, Monday morning. Ainsley had been a philandering doctor. Wednesday night a homosexual lawyer—Bates—had been murdered.

  But was Dwyer the real target?

  Was it Vicente—after Dwyer?

  Or was it Jessica Hanley—playing her own diabolical revolutionary games, manipulating her underworld pawns, Royce and Williams?

  Or was the Masked Man really the Masked Avenger, a faceless psychopath who’d decided to rid society of immoral doctors, homosexual lawyers—and power-hungry police chiefs? Did the murderer have a list of vices, as well as victims?

  Or was he playing a different game—a money game, cleverly concealed?

  “There’s the corner ahead, Lieutenant,” Canelli was saying. “It’s that bar there, on the corner of Third and Quesada. The Connection, it’s called.”

  I remembered the place. It was garishly decorated, did a thriving business—and was deadly dangerous. On the well-proven theory that the policeman’s job was easier if crime is centralized, places like the Connection were allowed to flourish—so long as its management played the game according to the rules. And the rules specified that information concerning the murder of a police officer must be turned over. Otherwise, the business enterprise would be forced out of existence—by fair means or foul.

  The word was out that the Masked Man had threatened Dwyer—that anyone concealing information about the Masked Man would fall, hard. Conversely, anyone supplying information on the Masked Man would earn points—big, important points. The Connection’s management was earning points.

  As we cruised past, I identified two undercover cars parked across the street from the Connection. A third unit—a florist’s van, ostensibly empty—contained three backup men, plus communications equipment, plus heavy armament. Another car, I knew, was parked around the corner, covering the bar’s rear exit.

  We were ready.

  “Go down one more block,” I said to Canelli. “Park partially out of sight. There.” I pointed. “Swing around behind that truck. Park so I can see the door.”

  After we’d come to a stop, I changed places with Canelli. He’d parked at just the right angle, concealing most of our car, yet giving me a clear view past the squared-off truck body. I
picked up the microphone. “What’s the surveillance frequency?” I asked.

  “Tach seven,” Culligan answered.

  I checked in with the four units. They’d been in position for more than an hour. Following orders, they’d arrived before the Connection had opened for business.

  “Do we have anyone inside?” I asked.

  “There’s a black patrolman named Lester inside, Lieutenant,” a voice answered. “He’s in plain clothes. We couldn’t find a black inspector that wasn’t known around here—not in the time we had, anyhow.” As he talked, I recognized the voice: Frank Youmans, from my own squad.

  “Are you still looking for someone?” I asked.

  “Well—no. We were waiting for you.”

  “I want you to contact Lieutenant Friedman, at the Hall. Tell him the situation, and tell him that I want two black detectives out here in a half-hour.”

  “Yessir.”

  I clicked off the microphone. “Without the right man inside,” I said, speaking to no one, “we’ve got nothing—no edge.”

  Both Canelli and Culligan mumbled agreement. I sat silently for a moment, then glanced at Canelli in the back seat. He wore a wrinkled windbreaker, baggy work pants and run-over shoes. His thick, stubborn black hair was uncombed, curling over the grime-circled open collar of his faded work shirt. His amiable, swarthy moon face was beard-stubbled. He looked like an overweight, out-of-condition day laborer, down on his luck.

  If any white man could enter the Connection posing as a displaced wanderer, Canelli had the best chance.

  Seeing my speculative scrutiny, Canelli looked elaborately away. Plainly, he didn’t want to go inside.

  “Maybe we should take him on the sidewalk,” Culligan offered. “It might be better for the informant, if he’s got any connection with—ah—the Connection.”

  I nodded. “Maybe you’re right.” I gave it another moment’s thought. Then, speaking again into the radio: “If the subject arrives before the two black detectives get here, and if Royce is heading for the front door—which he probably will—let’s take him on the sidewalk. Remember, though—I want it done as quickly and quietly as possible. Clear?”