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

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Doctor, Lawyer . . . (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 16

by Collin Wilcox


  “But you teach the fourth grade. How can you have papers to correct?”

  “Because my fourth graders work.”

  Smiling, I let myself fall back on the blanket. High in the sky, a gull was beginning a long, shallow dive toward the ocean. Another gull fell in behind the first. Were they mates? Or was the second gull an opportunist, hopeful of snatching a newly caught fish from its rival’s beak at the moment of maximum vulnerability, just clearing the water?

  It was, I realized, what we hoped to do: catch the Masked Man when he was most vulnerable, picking up the money.

  Would it work?

  Was the plan a sound one? Or were we running scared?

  “You look tired, Frank,” Ann said softly. “You look tired and discouraged.”

  “I am tired and discouraged.”

  “Are you worried about it—how it’s going to work out?”

  “Yes.”

  She didn’t reply, but I was aware that she was looking at me, searching my face with her solemn eyes. Except for fleeting, fragmentary references, we never talked about my work. I’d learned long ago that talking about it, for me, meant reliving the worst of it, best forgotten. And, for Ann, the violence and depravity with which a policeman constantly contended was terrifying—perhaps because, by cruel coincidence, she’d experienced both violence and depravity during the time we’d known each other, less than a year. We’d met when Dan, her older son, had come under suspicion in a homicide investigation. Later, by random chance, one of her students had been a witness to homicide—and almost a victim. Most recently, a degenerate with a psychotic grudge against me had terrorized Ann.

  “Come on,” she said, suddenly poking me in the ribs. “It’s late, and it’s getting chilly—and you’re falling asleep. You’re supposed to do that on my couch, not here.”

  Twenty

  “WHAT’D YOU THINK OF that one for an eyeopener on a Monday morning in October, space fans?” the voice blared. “Was that number straight from the nearest galaxy, or is old Patrick jiving you? Take your choice—but take it cool. Remember, there’s no business like show business, and no other show but Patrick’s Attick. And if you aren’t hearing what old Pat says so good, music lovers, then maybe you need a new sound system. So how about playing it cool, dollar stretchers? How about making the trip out to Stan’s Sound Stage, in Daly City? Remember, it’s been proven—demonstrated, indubitably and superabsolutely—that you save bucks every mile you make it out to Stan’s. And I mean, you save many, many megabucks. So check it out, all you dollar watchers. Remember, old Patrick don’t jive you. No way!

  “And now, Attick fans, welcome to the messages—old Patrick’s electronic mailbox, for lovers, misfits, poets and crackpots—anyone who can get it all into fifty words or less, and don’t get us bombed off the air. Because this is your air, fans. The ether is all yours, for fifty words or less. And today, fans, we have got ourselves something super, super spaced. You remember last week, don’t you? You do? All right, that’s cool. Because then you remember how a fan named Bobby sent us a message for Audrey. Now, I’m not going to tell you Bobby’s message—because, if I did that, you wouldn’t bother to listen to the Attick except every other time, instead of every time. You follow my arithmetic? You dig? I’ll pause, while you compute that out. Ready? All right, now here’s Audrey’s answer. That’s right, fans, this is what Audrey says to Bobby. She says—and old Patrick quotes—‘It’s been a bad week, Bobby. Call me after my mom goes to work.’ Ahh, Audrey and Bobby, Patrick blesses you. And I hope old Mom works late tonight. I hope she puts in lots and lots of overtime.

  “And now, before we give you a listen to the newest from the Blisters, which has gotta be the smoothest group around these days, we’ve got another message—a one-liner. This one is one of those far out ones, you dig? Like, we’re hearing from the Jesus fans today. Right? ‘We have seen the light. We repent. Hallelujah!’ Can you dig it? No? Well, then, listen to the Blisters. This one is called ‘Feathers Falling from the Sun,’ and it is really moving up on the charts. It—”

  As I switched off the radio, my phone rang.

  “Good morning,” Friedman said. “Are you ready for a progress report, or would you rather hear ‘Feathers Falling from the Sun’?”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing very dramatic,” he said. “Except that the patrol officers who cover the sector where Mobley lives think—repeat, think—that they saw Mobley and Vicente sitting in Vicente’s car on Mission Street last week sometime.”

  “Did you ask Mobley about it?”

  “Yes. He denied it.” He paused, then, speaking regretfully, he said, “This whole thing is having a—a corrosive effect on Mobley. I hate to see it happen. He’s taken enough crap already.”

  “I know.”

  A moment of reflective silence passed. Then I said, “Still, we could be overlooking the most obvious explanation of all. We’ve got two disaffected cops—victims of the system, they probably think. Mobley could’ve stolen the guns, and Vicente could’ve used them.”

  “But they’re both in direct line of suspicion.”

  “Not Vicente. He just happened to be eyeballed driving south of Jones Street Wednesday night. If it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t even be on his tail. As for Mobley, all he’s got to do is deliver the guns and not get caught. Then he denies everything.”

  “What about Irving’s prints?” Friedman asked.

  “Mobley could have given him the guns to handle.”

  “I asked him if he’d ever seen Irving in the property room. He denied it.”

  “Wouldn’t you expect him to deny it?”

  “No,” he answered mildly, “I wouldn’t. Not if he’s guilty. I’d expect him to say that, yes, he saw Irving hanging around.”

  “Maybe he’s doublethinking us.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What about Irving?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” he said. “Zero.”

  “Christ.”

  “Yeah. Incidentally, I had a brainstorm yesterday. Or, more to the point, I thought of something I should’ve thought of before.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I suddenly realized that we should be trying to find out who among our cast of characters listened to Patrick’s Attick this morning.”

  “God, you’re right. Did you set it up?”

  “As much as I could. I’ve dispatched teams equipped with electronic listening devices, to try to see whether they can hear through doors, or walls, or whatever. Of course, there’s always the transistor radio with an earphone. Which, almost certainly, the Masked Man is using. There’s also the tape recorder, which would allow him to be at the corner drugstore when the program is on. Still, I thought you’d like to know that we’re covered, more or less.”

  “Is the payoff money ready?”

  “The deputy mayor is bringing it over here about nine o’clock.”

  “Who’s going to take charge of it?”

  “That’s for you and me to decide,” he said. “Dwyer is doing exactly what he promised. He’s letting us call the shots.”

  “I’d better get down there.”

  “Right. Have a hearty breakfast.”

  “This is Charles Wade,” Friedman said, making the introductions, “our deputy mayor. Mr. Wade, Lieutenant Hastings.”

  Wade stepped forward, depositing an attaché case on my desk. Friedman closed my office door after a surreptitious glance down the corridor. Then Friedman and I counted the money, gave Wade a receipt and promised the deputy mayor that we would keep him advised. Five minutes later, the aloof, impeccably tailored politician sniffed a sour goodbye.

  “There goes a twelve-carat horse’s ass,” Friedman observed. “He’s a Yale man, I happen to know.”

  Staring at the attaché case, now resting on the floor beside my desk, I didn’t reply. Friedman mused, “A half-million dollars. It’s unreal—just like everything about this case. Totally unreal. If there were five thousand d
ollars in that case, I swear to God I’d worry more. A half-million dollars is so—so astronomical that there’s no connection with what’s really happening. It’s like worrying that the sun is going to burn itself out. There’s no point.” As he spoke, he slumped heavily into my visitor’s chair and drew a cigar from his vest pocket.

  “You look like you got some sleep last night,” he said finally.

  “I did. Thank God.”

  “Don’t thank God. Thank me. You were at my mercy, asleep on Ann’s couch. As for me, I had nightmares about this damn case. All night long, I was either chasing the Masked Man or he was chasing me.”

  “What about the Patrick’s Attick count this morning? Any luck?”

  “Yes and no.” He paused to light his cigar. When he sailed the smoking match toward my wastebasket, I didn’t even bother to look. This morning, the zest had gone out of the game.

  “Of all the suspects—or subjects—or whatever you want to call them,” Friedman said, “none were actually heard listening to Patrick’s Attick. On the other hand, both Laura Farley and Jamison were up and around at six o’clock—which is in itself somewhat suspect, since neither one of them has to be at the Hall here until nine o’clock.”

  I remembered that Laura habitually rose early—that, in fact, she suffered from insomnia. But I decided to remain silent

  “What about Mobley?” I asked.

  “He didn’t seem to be up, according to Culligan. However, he could’ve had a transistor under the pillow, as I said earlier. He—”

  There was a knock on the door. I moved the attaché case inside the foot well of my desk as I called, “Come in.” Culligan entered, carrying two plastic evidence bags. A glance at the tall, stoop-shouldered detective’s face revealed that something had happened.

  “What is it, Culligan?” I asked.

  “We’ve got a contact,” Culligan said, speaking in his flat, laconic voice. Yet I could sense his tension. He laid one evidence bag on my desk. The bag contained a single sheet of wrinkled yellow foolscap, newly flattened out. Friedman and I read the brief, neatly typed lines:

  In the gutter in front of the Hall of Justice, 25 feet east of the mailbox, there is an empty can of Coors beer. Look inside.

  THE MASKED MAN

  “How was this delivered?” I asked.

  “About twenty minutes ago,” Culligan said, “a call came into the Chief’s office. The exact time was eight minutes after nine. A voice said, ‘This is the Masked Man. Do you know who I am?’ And, Jesus, the detective who was supposed to be covering Dwyer’s incoming calls was out of the office. So Dwyer’s secretary took the call. But, thank God, she had enough sense to take it seriously.” Dolefully, Culligan shook his head, as if he were unwilling to admit that something had gone right. “So she asked the caller what he wanted, and he told her to go downstairs and look in a potted plant across from the first bank of elevators, where she’d find a piece of paper, all crumpled up, like it had been thrown away. So, if you can believe it, she decides—on her own—to phone downstairs to the guys on the door who’re running the metal detector, to ask them whether there really is a piece of paper there. So those—those bimbos on the door, they found the piece of paper, and flattened it out without thinking about fingerprints, or anything else.”

  “Did they read the message?” I asked.

  Culligan nodded. “Sure, they did. And then, without asking anyone, they went out and found the goddam beer can.” He held up the second bag.

  Friedman groaned, then held out his hand for the second envelope. It also contained a flattened piece of crumpled foolscap. This message, too, was neatly typed:

  Send one man with the money in a United Airlines flight bag to the main branch of the public library. He will arrive at 7:00 P.M. today. He will be unarmed. He will be wearing tight-fitting blue jeans and a skintight t-shirt. He will go to the poetry section and will find The Collected Works of John Greenleaf Whittier. He will find instructions between pages 21 and 22. If you do not obey these instructions to the letter, there will be no second chance. Chief Dwyer will die.

  THE MASKED MAN

  “Very ingenious,” Friedman muttered. “Very goddam professional.” To Culligan he said, “Who saw this message, besides you?”

  “No one. They finally wised up, and contacted me as soon as they found the can. Or maybe they just didn’t have a beer-can opener.” Culligan grimaced. “Who knows? Anyhow, I fished out the message, and sent the can to the fingerprint lab. Then I—”

  My phone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Friedman grunted, lifting the receiver. I watched him listen, saw him tense involuntarily, then watched his eyes go cautiously blank as he glanced at Culligan.

  “All right,” Friedman said into the phone. “Hold on a minute.” He covered the mouthpiece and turned to Culligan, saying, “Lieutenant Hastings and I will take care of these notes. What I’d like you to do is stay with Communications. We’ve got to find Vicente and Irving Meyer. I want you to keep the pressure on, with Dwyer’s direct authority. Clear?”

  “Yessir.” Culligan left the office with a last reluctant glance at the two notes. A worrier, Culligan clucked over evidence he discovered.

  With his hand still over the receiver, Friedman waited for the door to close before he spoke softly to me: “This is the lab. They’ve found the M-16. It was broken down into four parts and wired up under the chassis of Vicente’s car.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah.”

  Twenty-one

  “ALL RIGHT,” FRIEDMAN SAID, “You can deliver the money. But you’re going to do it my way, not Dwyer’s way.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means,” he said firmly, “that, first of all, you’re going to go wired. Second, you’re going to go armed. And, third, Canelli and Culligan and I are going to monitor you. Close by. With shotguns. We’re also going to have other units in the area—lots of other units. Dwyer says he wants to take the Masked Man at the drop, but he seems to think we—you and I—can do it without any manpower, just because he wants to keep the payoff a secret. It doesn’t make sense. It’s irrational. So I’m going to do it my way. He gave us the on-the-scene authority. I’m going to use it. If Dwyer wants to bring me up on charges of insubordination, I’ll call up a couple of reporters and leak it that he obstructed justice and harbored a fugitive”—Friedman waved an angry hand—“and a few other incidental charges.”

  “Dwyer said, specifically, that he doesn’t want the payoff jeopardized. And the more who know the time and the place, the bigger the chance of a leak.”

  Friedman regarded me silently for a moment before he said, “The rebuttal to your objection is that it’s not a question of leaks. It’s a matter of Irving’s neck. Dwyer doesn’t want his stepson blown away, if that’s the way this thing comes down. And the more cops with guns, the better chance there is that someone’ll get killed.”

  “All right, I’ll concede that. But I can’t very well go armed. Not if I dress like the note demands.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got the whole operation planned,” he said briskly.

  “Oh?”

  “Right. I anticipated, rightly, that since you’re a macho type, you’d insist on making the payoff singlehanded, in your best steely-eyed, gunslinger style. So I took measures.” He reached in his right-hand desk drawer, withdrawing a minimicrophone attached by three feet of thin wire to a transmitter the size of a cigarette package. “Here”—he tossed a roll of adhesive tape on his desk—“tape it on.” He looked at the clock. “It’s almost six. We haven’t much time.”

  I slipped off my shirt, opened my penknife and cut a small hole in the pocket of my jeans. I threaded the nickel-size microphone through the hole, then up inside the jeans. I taped the microphone and wire to my chest. As I slipped the transmitter into my pocket, I saw Friedman take a tiny double-barreled derringer from another
drawer. “I’ve been shopping,” he said, balancing the chrome-plated derringer in his hand.

  “Aw, come on, Pete. A gun like that isn’t worth the risk. I’ll take my chances.”

  “This is a .38,” he countered. “If you get close enough, you can blow the head off a horse. Besides, I’ve got something cute here to go with it. Rafferty, in Special Services, made it with his own hands, instead of going out for lunch. So you owe him a lunch.” He dipped into the drawer again and came up with a ganglia of canvas and leather.

  “What the—”

  “It’s a neck holster,” he said. “You lace it around your neck. The holster goes in back, and your shirt collar hides the gun.”

  I shrugged and began lacing the canvas mantle in place. It settled snugly on my shoulders, bordering my neck by about an inch. The miniature leather holster fitted between my shoulder blades.

  “The gun is worth the risk,” Friedman said decisively.

  “All right.” I drew on a knitted polo shirt, purchased less than a half-hour ago, two sizes too small. Fortunately, the shirt’s collar rose high enough to conceal the holster.

  As I experimented with the derringer, Friedman said, “What I want you to do is follow the Masked Man’s instructions. Don’t be a hero. Remember, if it’s Vicente—which seems probable—you’ll be going up against a professional.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “If he gets away with the money,” Friedman continued, “it’s no sweat. The city can afford it. Plus, it was the city’s idea to pay. It’s got nothing to do with us. It’s their responsibility. So you just deliver the satchel—and keep talking to yourself, or whistling, so we can get a fix on you.” He paused, frowning as he considered. “Whistling is best,” he said finally. “How about ‘That Old Black Magic?’ Do you know it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whistle it.”

  I obeyed. When I’d finished, Friedman nodded vigorous approval. “Good. Just keep whistling. We’ll have directional receivers in two cars. Do you know how the derringer works?”

 

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