Suspects

by William Caunitz

  Scanlon saw two cops moving about the hall, tacking green garbage bags over all the windows. “Looks like the entertainment is about to start,” he said to the inspector.

  The club’s treasurer read the financial report.

  The club’s president rose from his seat. “I’ll take a motion to ajoin.”

  The motion to adjourn was shouted up from the floor and seconded. The din grew. Willie Nelson sang “Till I Gain Control Again.” A loud pounding came at the door. The sergeant-at-arms moved up to the door and peeked out from the side of the refuse bag. Nodding in recognition, he unlocked the door.

  A stocky blond man with short hair ambled into the hall. Two women followed him inside. One of the women had jet-black hair that was teased up into the shape of a beehive. Her thin body was squeezed into iridescent pink toreador pants. She had on a black pullover with a wide patent-leather belt with a large white buckle. A heavy dose of black eyeshadow gave her small face a chalky hue.

  The other woman had a long, angular black face. Her head had been shaven save for a clump of hair on the top that had been styled into a large pompom. She wore a green pullover and Kelly-green toreador pants with a white belt.

  Both of the women had on four-inch spike heels.

  Scanlon and the inspector had been watching one of the poker games when the women sauntered into the hall. “The guy with them is Bert Nocarski, Gallagher’s driver. He must have gone to pick up the hookers,” Herman the German told Scanlon.

  “Shit, now we’re stuck here,” Scanlon said.

  The cardplayers and the crapshooters ignored the new arrivals. With hoots and howls the rookies rushed to greet the hookers, quickly surrounding them. The two women strutted their wares among the circle, cooing sexual promises, laughingly tickling scrotums. Most of the policewomen who had been in the hall when the hookers entered made their way downstairs to the basement bar. Three remained, trying to ignore the hookers, but every now and then casting side glances at them.

  Bert Nocarski shoved his way through the crowd up to the bar and poured himself a shot of whiskey. He held up the tumbler, studying it for a long moment, before he downed the drink in one quick gulp. He poured another and turned to the cop next to him, and Scanlon heard him say, “Did you hear about the fag who walked into the bar with a parrot on his shoulder …”

  Scanlon made a move to go up to the bar. Herman the German stopped him. “Wait.”

  Nocarski drank, poured another. Herman knows his men, Scanlon thought, turning his attention back to the poker game. The music was loud. The card and crap games continued unabated. The hookers had taken off all their clothes, except for the spike heels, and were dancing around the hall, swirling and swaying to the beat of the music. Three rookies rushed out onto the floor and began to dance with the hookers.

  The white hooker with the teased hair shimmied her body over to one of the card tables and began to hump on one of the player’s arms. The annoyed player shoved her away. She danced off. The recording secretary opened the front door for the Seven-eight patrol sergeant and his driver. The hookers danced over to the two uniformed policemen, circling them, rubbing their bodies against them. The hookers began to jostle the sergeant’s boyish driver. The black hooker threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, grinding her body against him. The white hooker began to work the zipper of his fly down. The sergeant laughed and walked back toward the bar.

  The three remaining policewomen made their way through the crowd to the staircase and hurried downstairs. The sergeant’s driver struggled to escape from the hookers’ amorous clutches.

  Several rookies rushed out from the sidelines to restrain the driver. The white hooker had worked down the driver’s fly and was fishing out his penis. To the delight of the rookies, the black hooker went down on her knees and began to suck the driver. The sergeant’s driver was turned on. He stood with his head all the way back, his eyes closed, his hands guiding the hooker’s head.

  The cardplayers anted.

  The club’s president made six straight passes.

  Scanlon threw a quick glance at the raucous policemen and thought, This scene would make one helluva recruitment poster. The white hooker danced her way over to the card game that Scanlon and Herman the German were watching. She dragged a chair from the sidelines and sat with her legs spread up in the air. She smiled at Scanlon. “Wanna taste, handsome?”

  Scanlon looked down at her. “No thanks, honey. I’m on a fat-free diet.”

  One of the rookies rushed over to the white hooker, fell to his knees, and buried his face in her muff. Rookies ran over and circled the kneeling policeman, shouting encouraging advice.

  A paper plate sailed through the air. Someone shouted that the Martians were coming. The dice game and the card games continued, undaunted by the ear-piercing din. A fight broke out at one of the card tables. “Let’s get this over with and get the hell out of here,” Scanlon said to the inspector.

  They began to shove their way over to the bar. The sergeant’s driver pushed past them, zipping up his fly. The black hooker was spread-eagled on the dais with the sergeant-at-arm’s face buried between her legs. Cops were three-deep around the counter. Scanlon shoved his way up to Nocarski. He waited for the inspector, who had been stopped by a drunken cop. Herman the German had just made his way over to Scanlon when silence descended over the big hall. The dice stopped rolling. No pots were anted. No glasses were hoisted. The rookies fell silent.

  Scanlon knew what that meant and winced. He turned to look. The hookers were out in the middle of the floor, grinding their bodies into each other, their flailing tongues touching, their hands probing the other body, caressing. The black hooker slithered down onto her back. Her partner knelt down alongside her, kissing her body, her tongue slowly working its way downward.

  Scanlon took in the cops’ wide-eyed expression, their unconscious gnawing of lips, their heaving chests and flared nostrils and crimson ears. Nothing, but nothing, turns a man on like watching women getting it off together, Scanlon thought, tapping Bert Nocarski on the shoulder.

  They went downstairs and sat at a table in the bar, the flickering candle throwing fingers of light onto their faces. Bert Nocarski was fidgety. He looked with suspicion at Scanlon. “Ain’t you the Whip of the Nine-three Squad?”

  Before Scanlon could answer, Herman the German said, “Bert, I’d like you to continue driving the new lieutenant until he gets his feet wet.”

  “Whatever you want, boss,” Nocarski said, relaxing.

  “Bert, how long did you chauffeur Lieutenant Gallagher around?” Scanlon asked, picking at the netting around the lantern.

  Nocarski looked at Herman the German.

  “Bert, this is a friend of mine,” the inspector said, not mentioning Scanlon by name. “He’s here to do me a favor, and we need your help.”

  “Around eleven months,” Nocarski said.

  Herman the German leaned across the table to confide, “Someone dropped a letter on Joe Gallagher. One of the allegations is that Joe had a girlfriend that he used to visit on city time.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Nocarski said. “The boss was a happily married man who never fucked around.”

  “Hey, everybody knows that, Bert,” Scanlon said.

  “Anyway, what difference does that make now? He’s dead,” Nocarski said.

  “It makes a big difference to his family and to his reputation on the Job,” Herman the German said. “Those humps in IAD would love to be able to smear the reputation of a solid street cop like Joe Gallagher.”

  “They’d get their rocks off all right,” Scanlon said.

  “Fucking-A right,” Nocarski said, angrily scraping back his chair and walking over to the bar. “Anyone wanna taste?”

  Scanlon and Herman the German declined.

  Lowering himself back onto the bentwood chair, Nocarski said, “The letter writers in this Job should have their balls cut off.”

  Assuming a conspiratorial air, Scanlon hunched
forward and said, “We know that Joe used to visit the Santorini Diner from time to time.”

  “He was entitled to a meal period,” Nocarski protested.

  “Absolutely,” Scanlon agreed.

  “We want to reach out to whoever Joe used to meet in that diner and tell them that if anyone from IAD comes snooping around asking questions about Joe, they never heard of him,” Herman the German said. Stiffening his back in drunken pride, Nocarski said, “I’ll take care of it, boss.”

  “No,” Herman the German said. “I don’t want you involved. My friend here will take care of that. There is no way anyone can tie him into Gallagher.”

  “But I am involved,” Nocarski insisted. “I was with him every time that he went to that diner, and I even met his pal a coupla times.”

  “You’re not involved,” Scanlon countered. “Department regulations prevent supervisor’s drivers from being used as witnesses against their bosses for violations of department rules and regulations. You more or less have department immunity. But if you go to that diner now and attempt to head off anyone from talking to IAD, then you’d be sticking your head into a noose.”

  “I never thought of that,” Nocarski said.

  He was a small man with a pitted complexion. He sat behind a rather large desk, in a rather big chair, adjusting his rather fluffy orange bow tie. His name was Milton Tablin, and he was a factor, an old competitor of Sy Posner—and an “intimate” friend of Posner’s adventurous wife, Mary, who had enjoyed herself with Tablin before Gallagher came into her life. And thus Joe Gallagher knew all about Tablin and his work. Tablin was an entrepreneur who lent money to other entrepreneurs, and he was the man Scanlon had rushed to see early the morning after Nocarski gave him the name.

  A shapely brunette led Scanlon into the eleventh-floor office at 1380 Broadway, in the teeming heart of the garment district. Walking into the comfortable office, Scanlon took in the photographs and plaques that covered the walls of the rather large office.

  Milton Tablin was in every one of the photographs, outfitted in the uniform of a ranking police officer and posing with other uniformed men, most of whom Scanlon recognized as bosses in the Job. The plaques were from different police line organizations, given in grateful recognition to a financial benefactor, Milton Tablin, a cop’s friend.

  Scanlon was quick to conclude that the factor whom he had come to see was a dyed-in-the-wool cop buff.

  “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” Tablin asked, centering his tie as he watched his secretary’s retreating rump.

  “I’d like to speak to you about your lunchtime meetings with Joe Gallagher.”

  On guard, Tablin asked, “Who told you about them?”

  “Joe’s driver, Bert Nocarski.”

  “Joe asked me never to mention those meetings to anyone.” The factor cast a thoughtful glance at Scanlon. “Where do you work, Lieutenant?”

  Scanlon made a quick decision to charm the cop buff by using cop language. “I’m the Whip of the Nine-three Squad.”

  Milton Tablin grabbed over the telephone console that was on his desk and made a call. “Who got the Nine-three Squad?” he asked into the mouthpiece, his questioning eyes fixed on his visitor. He listened. Thrusting his chin at Scanlon, he said, “You got an artificial leg?”

  Scanlon lifted up his prosthesis, rapped knuckles on fiberglass.

  “Thanks,” Tablin said, hanging up. “That was a friend of mine in the CofD’s office. I had to make sure that you weren’t one of those snooping humps from Internal Affairs.”

  A silent smile, a gesture of understanding. Cop buffs think, talk, and try to act like the genuine article.

  “Joe is dead,” Tablin said. “Why the interest in our meetings?”

  “My Squad caught the squeal on Joe’s death,” Scanlon said. “A few things popped up during the course of the investigation.”

  “Anything heavy?”

  “Minor stuff, but it has got to be answered out.”

  “Coffee and …?” Tablin asked with a friendly smile.

  “Love it. Haven’t had my first cup yet.”

  Tablin pushed a button on the intercom and asked his secretary to get them some coffee and danish. He settled back in his seat and with great delight began to tell Scanlon about all his friends in the Job. Scanlon did not want to alienate Tablin, so he listened attentively, his brow knotted with interest.

  Milton Tablin was a captain in the Auxiliary Police. Scanlon was forced to endure an insufferable litany of Auxiliary Police complaints: regular cops consider the auxiliaries psychos and labor scabs; auxiliaries are not permitted to make arrests or carry firearms; the auxiliaries’ only function is to give a police presence and to report suspected violations of law. Scanlon swallowed a yawn, smiled, and listened with all the sympathy and understanding he could force himself to muster.

  Tablin, with great glee, went on to tell Scanlon the latest scuttlebutt in the Job: who was scheduled for promotion, who was being greased for the slide downward, and who was sleeping with whom. Suddenly Tablin was on his feet, throwing back his suit jacket to reveal his Smith and Wesson automatic pistol in a quick-draw holster secured on his hip. “It’s a double-action nine millimeter,” he said, caressing the automatic. “I had battle sights put on.”

  Another psycho heard from, Scanlon thought, saying, “How many rounds does it hold?”

  “Ten in the clip,” Tablin said smugly, letting his jacket fall back over the weapon and sitting down. Dejectedly, he said, “I’m a captain in the Auxiliary Police and I had to get a carry permit to have a concealed weapon. I mean, I ask you, Lou, is that right? How do they expect us to uphold the law without being armed?”

  “I think that sucks, Milton. You guys are an integral part of the Job,” Scanlon said, relieved when a soft knock came and Tablin’s secretary entered. While Tablin was taking the goodies from the bag, Scanlon said, “Why don’t you tell me about Joe Gallagher?”

  Handing him a container of hot coffee, Tablin began to talk about the dead police lieutenant. When Tablin had first joined the auxiliaries in ’71, Gallagher had been a sergeant assigned to the Auxiliary Forces Section. Gallagher used to lecture Tablin’s class on the Penal Law and the Law of Arrest. Tablin liked Gallagher immediately. Gallagher seemed to go out of his way to be nice to the auxiliaries. The both of them hit it off together, almost an instant friendship. One evening after Gallagher had finished giving his lecture he came up to Tablin and asked him if he would like to go to a precinct club meeting. “I think you might enjoy yourself, Milton,” Gallagher had said with a mischievous twinkle.

  “That was really something,” Tablin said, fondly recalling his first witnessing of an act of public sodomy as he bit into his prune danish.

  Sipping coffee, Scanlon thought about how the wheelers and dealers on the Job were always on the lookout for businessmen to ingratiate themselves with. One of the best ways of doing that was to invite the entrepreneur to a precinct racket or a precinct club meeting that was going to have entertainment. A small segment of the cop world was thus revealed, causing the civilian to feel as though he were now one of the boys, as though he were on the Job, almost.

  Scanlon was sure that Tablin’s name had been added to Gallagher’s list of people who were good—people to whom he could go for a favor. He was just as sure that his own name had been on Gallagher’s list. “I’ve taken care of it, luv. You owe me one,” Gallagher had said to Scanlon that long-ago day in Riccardo’s restaurant, alluding to the contract that Gallagher had put in with the first deputy commissioner that allowed Scanlon to remain on the Job after he had lost his leg. Scanlon never imagined that the payback would be to a dead Irishman.

  “Did you and Joe remain friends after your training ended?” he asked.

  “We’d have lunch every couple of months.” And Gallagher never once picked up a tab, Scanlon thought. “And we’d run into each other at rackets,” Tablin said.

  The smart ones always maintain the friendship, Scanl
on thought, asking, “Why were you meeting Joe at the Santorini Diner?”

  Looking down his coffee container, Tablin said, “Joe made me promise that I would never tell anyone about that. Joe’s gone now, but a promise to a buddy is a promise kept.”

  Scanlon nibbled on his danish, thinking about what to say next. Tell no one, extract the promise, a cop’s way. He looked up at Tablin. “I wouldn’t ask you to tell me if it weren’t important, really important. We really need your help on this one, Cap,” Scanlon said, using the diminutive of captain.

  Milton Tablin’s face glowed. “Well, I don’t know, Lou.”

  “Cap, I assure you, one cop to another, that if Joe was in this room with us now, he would tell you to tell me. In fact, he’d insist.”

  Tablin relented. “Well, since we’re both on the Job, I guess it’d be okay.” He took a gulp of coffee. “Do you know what a factor does?”

  “He lends money to businessmen,” Scanlon said, breaking off a piece of danish.

  “It’s more complicated than that,” said the factor. “We lend money to our clients on the strength of their commercial paper for ten over prime.” The factor saw the puzzled expression on Scanlon’s countenance and explained, “Ten over prime means that we take a commission of ten percent over the prime rate. And commercial paper is those instruments that are used in business in place of money.” He was no longer the police buff; he had made the transition back into his other world; he was now Milton Tablin, factor. Waving a hand for emphasis, he explained, “Commercial paper can be almost anything—short-term notes, checks, acceptances, bills of lading, orders for the delivery of merchandise.”

  Unconsciously scratching his left knee, Scanlon asked, “How does it work?”