Suspects

by William Caunitz

  Harris shook his head. “We always have a few grand on hand to make buys. Our undercovers sign out the money, usually a few hundred at a time. They have to sign vouchers, and each time a buy goes down it has to be observed by a supervisor, or at least it’s supposed to be. But naturally, sometimes a supervisor can’t see what’s going down because they’re in a basement or on a roof. But anyway, buying junk is the same as buying chop meat at the supermarket. A pound of eye round cost so much and a bag of junk cost so much. An undercover can’t say he paid forty dollars for nose candy when the going rate on the street is thirty. The humps in IAD who monitor our funds know what the price is as well as we do.”

  “Does your unit ever deal in kilo weight?”

  “Depends on how many keys. We can deal up to thirty grand—after that we have to ask permission from the division to play. If it’s a real heavy deal, we turn it over to the boys in Special Investigations. And sometimes the deal can be so big that we turn it over to the federal boys.”

  “How often is the fund audited?”

  “Every quarter. And there are unannounced spot audits, too. There ain’t no way anybody can play around with that money.”

  “There’s always a way, Sarge. Some enterprising cop just has to think of it.” Scanlon picked up a cigar packet, saw that it was empty, and rummaged around in the top drawer of his desk for his reserve supply. While doing this, he asked in a low voice, “Luise Bardwell your girlfriend?”

  Harris’s expression turned ugly. “Stay out of my private life, Scanlon.”

  “Lieutenant Scanlon, Sergeant. And by the way, my mother’s name was Vitale.” He found the green-and-white box behind an old Rules and Procedures manual.

  “My private life is none of the department’s business.” A declarative statement that every cop knew to be false.

  Scanlon took his time lighting up, studying the man in front of him. He got up and went over to the low metal library cabinet against the wall, pushed one of the sliding glass doors aside, and removed the Patrol Guide from the top shelf. He balanced the thick blue book on his palm, holding it in front of him. “Sergeant, I give you the Job’s holy bible. In particular, I’d like to call your attention to procedure one-oh-four slash one, six pages of prohibited conduct printed single-space. Everything from engaging in unnecessary conversation while on patrol to incurring liabilities which cannot be paid as they become due. Now, I can’t quote you chapter and verse, but I can guarantee that somewhere in these six pages is a phrase that goes something like this: ‘If married, thou shall not lie with another.’” He returned the book to its place in the cabinet. He had enjoyed his little performance, particularly when he had addressed Harris as Sergeant. Lieutenant Scanlon, Sergeant. Perhaps lawyers did have the right idea; a little drama is good for the soul.

  Harris caved in reluctantly. “The lady is married.”

  “Aren’t they all, George.” The plastic button on the telephone flashed. He slapped it down and brought the receiver up.

  Deputy Chief MacAdoo McKenzie’s strained voice informed him that the PC wanted to see both of them, together. Forthwith, he added ominously.

  “Right,” Scanlon said, hanging up. He stared intensely at Harris. “I know that Gallagher participated in a threesome with your girlfriend.”

  Harris made a dismissive gesture. “Luise is a strange lady. The threesome was her idea. She’s into that kind of stuff. She never wanted any kids because they leave stretch marks.”

  “She goes both ways?”

  “Yes. She’s open about it, too.”

  “How did Joe get involved with her?”

  “Luise first brought up the subject to me. Said she wanted to get it on with me and a woman who she had been having an affair with. I told her that that wasn’t my bag and suggested Joe. She liked the idea a whole lot.”

  “Didn’t it ever bother you that Joe and your lady friend were going to hop into the feathers together, not to mention the fact that she went both ways?”

  Harris made a weary little gesture. “That thing she’s got between her legs don’t have an odometer on it, and it don’t wear out. As long as the lady is available when I want to see her, I don’t give a good shit what she does or with whom.”

  True love is wonderful, Scanlon thought. “What’s the story with the lady’s husband?”

  “They have an open marriage. He’s a psychoanalyst with a fancy Manhattan practice. Luise told me that he ain’t above taking a little tap in the ass every now and then. She told me that they sit around the dinner table discussing their adventures with each other.”

  “Then the husband knew all about you and Joe and the threesome.”

  “I got to assume that he did.”

  “I’m going to have to talk to both of them,” Scanlon said.

  “Lou, do what you gotta do. I’m on your side.” He began to run his nails over the blue denim, studying the white strain in the fabric. “I’ve asked the borough commander to assign me to the case. Any objections?”

  “No. But if you really want to help, I’d prefer you to stay where you are. Mix with the people in your unit, with the cops in the precinct. I need some ears over there. I have to find out where Joe got his gambling money.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but it won’t be easy. Cops clam up whenever they think there might be a problem.”

  6

  The anteroom of the PC’s fourteenth-floor office at police headquarters was surrounded by a glass wall. Blue sofas, low white tables made of plastic, and chrome tubular sand-filled receptacles for cigarette butts filled the area. People waiting their turn to see the PC talked in hushed voices, or kept their faces buried in magazines, while they silently rehearsed the arguments that they would use on the police commissioner.

  On the other side of the glass wall, to the left of the double door, sat the PC’s aide. He was a tall, lean man with short hair and spit-shined shoes whose tailored uniform bore the gilt oak leaf of a deputy inspector. Occasionally he would glance up from the stack of Unusual Occurrence reports to check the lights over the door; the red one was still on.

  Deputy Chief MacAdoo McKenzie was also watching the red light. He thought that the damn thing had been on for an interminable length of time when in fact it had only been three minutes. Scanlon was sitting next to him, browsing through the latest issue of Police Magazine. An article entitled “The Keys to K-9 Success” had caught his attention. He wondered if a canine corps might not be the answer that everyone was searching for. Enough properly trained dogs let loose in high-crime areas at night might reduce the two-legged-animal population who stalked the streets and subway stations. He liked that idea. He liked it a lot. When those doggies made a pinch, they really made a pinch!

  The silver-haired pastor of the Harlem Tabernacle Baptist Church was there to ask the PC if he would be disposed to transfer the pastor’s nephew, a God-fearing boy, from an active patrol precinct in the South Bronx to the Detective Division. The lad had confided to his uncle that he would really enjoy an assignment in the Pickpocket and Confidence Squad. The pastor intended to remind the commissioner of the help that he had given the department in defeating the move by some Harlem liberals to civilianize the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

  The president and the recording secretary of the Gravesend Planning Board were huddled on one of the sofas rehearsing the argument they would use to persuade the PC to assign additional police to the Six-one.

  E. Thornton Gray, the executive director of the American Civil Rights Union, was one of the people waiting. He passed the time reading the Wall Street Journal. He was a content man. And with good reason. Alza had closed yesterday at twenty-eight a share. He had bought five thousand shares at five in January of ’81.

  Gray was privy to a lot of inside information concerning future business trends and mergers. Captains of industry wanted him for their friend. They knew how to discreetly nurture a friendship: a chance remark over cocktails, a slip of the tongue after an apéritif. And a quic
k call to one’s broker.

  Gray wanted to see the PC because he had heard disquieting rumors that the department was testing a new heavyweight bullet. Gray had led the fight several years ago to force the police department to adopt a lighter load of ammunition, thereby reducing the bullet’s stopping power. The police hierarchy had caved in under the political pressure. This abject surrender resulted in policemen being maimed and killed. When Abou 37X and a detective locked arms on a Harlem street corner and began shooting at each other, they were inches apart. Yet the detective’s new bullets bounced harmlessly off 37X’s field jacket. An FBI agent’s bullet had brought the fugitive down, but not before the detective had been wounded. As police casualties mounted, the evidence grew overwhelming: the bullets that the police were using were not as effective as they should be in today’s hostile environment. Police line organizations had waged an uphill fight for a new bullet. The department, stung by the increase in police injuries, had reluctantly agreed to start tests on a heavier cartridge. E. Thornton Gray intended to do everything in his power to prevent that from coming to pass.

  Scanlon tossed the magazine onto the table and let his eyes roam around the room. They came to rest on a vaguely familiar face at the other end. The face had a dour expression and belonged to a broad-chested man with brownish-gray hair. He tried to remember where he knew that face from. A glimmer of remembrance. He nudged Deputy Chief MacAdoo McKenzie. “Isn’t that Inspector Loyd?”

  MacAdoo McKenzie whispered, “He’s been assigned by the mayor to baby-sit the PC.”

  “Has it gotten that bad?”

  “It has. Hardly a week goes by that Bobby Boy isn’t stopped for driving his private car on one of the city’s streets in an intoxicated condition. Up to now all the cops who have pulled him over have done the right thing. But it only takes one incident to be page one.”

  “That’s too bad,” Scanlon said, stealing a look at Inspector Loyd. He didn’t care about the PC’s little drinking problem but he felt sorry that Loyd was stuck with such a miserable job.

  “That’s only the half of it. He used to be in the closet with his lady friends, but lately he’s taken to waltzing them around town. A few weeks ago he showed up in Part 3B of Criminal Court with one of his Carmelitas. Both of them had a load on. He started to throw his weight around the courtroom, disrupting the proceedings, and the judge came within inches of tossing him into the slammer for contempt. He was lucky that a lot of cops were there to hustle his ass out before the judge came down on him. So poor Loyd’s been assigned to keep him out of trouble.”

  Bob Gomez paced the handsomely furnished office in front of the great desk that had once belonged to another police commissioner, Teddy Roosevelt. Sunlight filled the office. Gomez made a dashing figure: tall, erect, with a caramel-colored face that belied its fifty-three years. An extremely well-built man for his age, he was, as always, immaculately attired in a tailor-made sport jacket and slacks. His brown loafers had wide tassels.

  Today’s hangover was a particularly bad one. The belt of pain was like a vise on his forehead. They were getting progressively worse. He was just going to have to stop drinking. If he didn’t, it was only a question of time until the mayor got rid of him. And he liked having cognizance and control over the largest police department in the country. But he knew the Job could only protect him so far. That was it, he resolved. No more booze.

  Gomez was also annoyed at himself for having made a fool of himself in front of those goddamn television cameras at the scene of the Gallagher/Zimmerman homicide. He should have listened to the first dep’s whispered message that there might be a problem, and his advice that Gomez play down the hero angle. If there was a scandal brewing over Gallagher’s death he didn’t want to be dragged into it. He’d been lucky so far in his relationship with the press and the rest of the power brokers. He had gone out of his way to maintain open lines of communications with the news media and the rest of them. And it had paid off. He did their favors for them, promoted their damn friends and relatives, spoke at their goddamn dinners, assigned motorcycle escorts to them whenever their inflated egos required it. And, in return, they praised him as the best police commissioner that the city had ever had.

  He had been able, by manipulating crime statistics, to give the impression that crime had actually been reduced under his administration. We’re winning the war; we’ve turned the corner. Bullshit. He had been surprised that no other PC had thought of the idea.

  At his first Precinct Commanders’ Conference he had told them, obliquely, to handle their Sixty-one forms “with discretion.” Wise and wary men, tutored by years of experience in the subtle nuances of cop talk, understood. Soon grand larcenies were being classified petit larcenies; robberies were downgraded to simple assaults; burglaries were turned into malicious mischiefs. An outstanding PC, Gomez reflected sardonically and walked back to his desk. One of his major concerns now was the damn cops. They were forever pulling off outlandish stunts that ended up in the press. Yesterday he had read a report from IAD about a radio car team in the Tenth who not only abandoned their assigned sector, but abandoned the entire city. They drove out to Suffolk County to attend a lawn party the recorder’s girlfriend was giving. In a police car, no less. He was going to have to start handing down stiffer penalties in the Trial Room. No more Mister Nice Guy. But right now his main concern was this Gallagher mess. He was terrified by the possibility that it might not sink into serene oblivion fast enough.

  He stood in front of the large picture window peering out through the white vertical blinds. The rays of a dying sun felt strong as his eyes moved along the tops of the buildings of lower Manhattan. Far below he noticed a mounted cop checking the parked cars along Worth Street. A group of tourists were being shepherded through the vaulted underpass of the Municipal Building. A five-member band was playing ragtime for the tourists in Police Plaza Park. He thought about the next day. He was scheduled to pay a visit to Gallagher’s widow and present her with five thousand dollars from the Police Welfare Fund. The press was sure to be in heavy attendance. He’d wear a dark suit and a grieved expression and pose with the widow and her fatherless child, or was it children? He couldn’t remember, and what did it matter, anyway? What was important was that it would be good PR. Moving away from the window, he stepped up to the row of buttons on his desk.

  Deputy Chief MacAdoo McKenzie shot upright in his seat and nudged Scanlon when he saw the green light flick on.

  As the doors to his office began to open, Bob Gomez quickly grabbed the top report from the Urgent/In basket and began to read it. The report proved to be the translation of the Mexican police report on the arrest of José Torres, the escaped FALN terrorist who was known throughout the Job as No Hands because he had lost both his hands when he accidentally blew up his East Village bomb factory. “Damn Ricans could never handle that high-tech stuff,” a Bomb Squad member had commented at the time.

  Gomez read slowly and did not look up as his aide led the two police officials inside and quietly left the room.

  They waited in front of the great desk, watching as the PC initialed the last page of the report and tossed it into the Urgent/Out basket.

  With a sweep of his hand, Gomez motioned them to sit in the cushioned chairs arranged in front of his desk. “I’m glad that you both could manage to tear yourself away from your other pressing duties and come have a little chat with me,” Gomez said.

  Scanlon looked past the PC out the window to the glass-and-stone side of Pace University. Eager, wide-eyed students were in that building learning all there was to learn about the function of government in contemporary society. How little they’ll learn, he thought, relaxing, ready for the civics lesson that he knew was about to begin.

  Gomez said ominously, “I would like to know why I was not thoroughly briefed at the Gallagher crime scene.” His glare fell on McKenzie, placing blame.

  The deputy chief cleared his throat and squirmed. “It was my understanding that the firs
t dep had been informed that there might be a problem.”

  “The first dep is not the PC. I am. And I should have been personally advised that Gallagher might be dirty.”

  Scanlon was looking down at his prosthesis; he had crossed the fake one over the real one. He looked up, his black eyes boring into the PC’s angry face. “You were told,” he said calmly.

  Gomez sat ramrod-straight, his hostile stare fixed on Scanlon, his fingertips drumming on his desk. “Nobody told me anything, Lieutenant.” His twisted face betrayed his lie. “But I do expect you to tell me now. I want to know exactly where the department stands on the Gallagher/Zimmerman homicide. And I want it all.”

  Unruffled, with professional nonchalance, Scanlon told the PC about the splash pad in Jackson Heights, the sexual aids to happiness, the girlfriends, the threesome, the gambling, the indebtedness to Walter Ticornelli, the shylock. When he’d finished, he leaned back in his seat and waited.

  Gomez leaned his head back against the cushioned headrest of the high-backed chair and closed his eyes, sorting it all out.

  A minute passed.

  Gomez opened his eyes and spoke. “Yesterday in Federal Court, Detective Alfred Martin was convicted of kidnapping and robbing diamond dealers here and in PR. The Daily News ran five lines on page sixty-three, right next to an ad for Kal Kan dog food. The Times gave it ten lines on the obituary page. When Martin was arrested a year ago it was page one for three days and then died a natural death. But this Gallagher thing is different. It’s the kind of story the press gets off on. It has page-one ingredients. Staying power. ‘Sixty Minutes’ would probably want to do a piece on the sex lives of American police.” He was stern. “Gentlemen, this department, and this commissioner, does not want, or need, that kind of publicity.” He shook his index finger at them. “No more rotten apples. What we want and need are heroes. John Waynes in blue. And I would be very appreciative if you two saw to it that Lt. Joseph P. Gallagher remained a hero, one of our honored dead.” He raised his left eyebrow, sliding his gaze from one to the other. “Is my meaning perfectly clear, gentlemen?”