Ed McBain_87th Precinct 22

by Fuzz

  “Search me,” the kid said. “Guy stopped me on the street and give me five bucks to deliver it.”

  “Sit down,” Genero said. He took the envelope from the kid and debated opening it, and then realized he had got his fingerprints all over it. He dropped it on the desk. In the toilet down the hall, the painters were singing. Genero was only supposed to answer the phone and take down messages. He looked at the envelope again, severely tempted. “I said sit down,” he told the kid.

  “What for?”

  “You’re going to wait here until one of the detectives gets back, that’s what for.”

  “Up yours, fuzz,” the kid said, and turned to go.

  Genero drew his service revolver. “Hey,” he said, and the boy glanced over his shoulder into the somewhat large bore of a .38 Police Special.

  “I’m hip to Miranda-Escobedo,” the kid said, but he sat down nonetheless.

  “Good, that makes two of us,” Genero said.

  Cops don’t like other cops to get it. It makes them nervous. It makes them feel they are in a profession that is not precisely white collar, despite the paperwork involved. It makes them feel that at any moment someone might hit them or kick them or even shoot them.

  It makes them feel unloved.

  The two young sportsmen who had unloved Carella so magnificently had broken three of his ribs and his nose. They had also given him such a headache, due to concussion caused by a few well-placed kicks to the medulla oblongata. He had gained consciousness shortly after being admitted to the hospital and he was conscious now, of course, but he didn’t look good, and he didn’t feel good, and he didn’t feel much like talking. So he sat with Teddy beside the bed, holding her hand and breathing shallowly because the broken ribs hurt like hell. The detectives did most of the talking, but there was a cheerlessness in their banter. They were suddenly face to face with violence of a most personal sort, not the violence they dealt with every working day of their lives, not an emotionless confrontation with broken mutilated strangers, but instead a glimpse at a friend and colleague who lay in battered pain on a hospital bed while his wife held his hand and tried to smile at their feeble jokes.

  The four detectives left the hospital room at twelve noon. Brown and Willis walked ahead of Hawes and Kling, who trailed behind them silently.

  “Man, they got him good,” Brown said.

  The seventeen year old dropout was beginning to scream Miranda-Escobedo, quoting rights like a lawyer. Genero kept telling him to shut up, but he had never really understood the Supreme Court decision too well, despite the flyers issued to every cop in the precinct, and he was afraid now that the kid knew something he didn’t know. He was overjoyed to hear the ring of footsteps on the recently painted iron-runged steps leading to the squadroom. Willis and Brown came into view on the landing first. Kling and Hawes were behind them. Genero could have kissed them all.

  “These the bulls?” the dropout asked, and Genero said, “Shut up.”

  “What’s up?” Brown asked.

  “Tell your friend here about Miranda-Escobedo,” the kid said.

  “Who’re you?” Brown asked.

  “He delivered an envelope,” Genero said.

  “Here we go,” Hawes said.

  “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Give me some advice on my rights,” the kid said.

  “Tell me your name, or I’ll kick your ass in,” Brown said. “How do you like that advice?” He had just witnessed what a pair of young hoods had done to Carella, and he was in no mood to take nonsense from a snotnose.

  “My name is Michael McFadden, and I won’t answer no questions without a lawyer here,” the kid said.

  “Can you afford a lawyer?” Brown asked.

  “No.”

  “Get him a lawyer, Hal,” Brown said, bluffing.

  “Hey, wait a minute, what is this?” McFadden asked.

  “You want a lawyer, we’ll get you a lawyer,” Brown said.

  “What do I need a lawyer for? All I done was deliver an envelope.”

  “I don’t know why you need a lawyer,” Brown said. “You’re the one who said you wanted one. Hal, call the D.A.’s office, get this suspect here a lawyer.”

  “Suspect?” McFadden said. “Suspect? What the hell did I do?”

  “I don’t know, kid,” Brown said, “and I can’t find out because you won’t let me ask any questions without a lawyer here. You getting him that lawyer, Hal?”

  Willis, who had lifted the phone receiver and was listening to nothing more vital than a dial tone, said, “Tie-line’s busy, Art.”

  “Okay, I guess we’ll just have to wait then. Make yourself comfortable, kid, we’ll get a lawyer up here for you soon as we can.”

  “Look, what the hell,” McFadden said, “I don’t need no lawyer.”

  “You said you wanted one.”

  “Yeah, but, I mean, like if this is nothing serious …”

  “We just wanted to ask you some questions about that envelope, that’s all.”

  “Why? What’s in it?”

  “Let’s open the envelope and show the kid what’s in it, shall we do that?” Brown said.

  “All I done was deliver it,” McFadden said.

  “Well, let’s see what’s inside it, shall we?” Brown said. He folded his handkerchief over the envelope, slit it open with a letter opener, and then used a tweezer to yank out the folded note.

  “Here, use these,” Kling said, and took a pair of white cotton gloves from the top drawer of his desk. Brown put on the gloves, held his hands widespread alongside his face, and grinned.

  “Whuffo does a chicken cross de road, Mistuh Bones?” he said, and burst out laughing. The other cops all laughed with him. Encouraged, McFadden laughed too. Brown glowered at him, and the laugh died in his throat. Gingerly, Brown unfolded the note and spread it flat on the desk top:

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” McFadden asked.

  “You tell us,” Brown said.

  “Beats me.”

  “Who gave you this note?”

  “A tall blond guy wearing a hearing aid.”

  “You know him?”

  “Never saw him before in my life.”

  “He just came up to you and handed you the envelope, huh?”

  “No, he came up and offered me a fin to take it in here.”

  “Why’d you accept?”

  “Is there something wrong with bringing a note in a police station?”

  “Only if it’s an extortion note,” Brown said.

  “What’s extortion?” McFadden asked.

  “You belong to The Terrible Ten, don’t you?” Kling asked suddenly.

  “The club broke up,” McFadden said.

  “But you used to belong.”

  “Yeah, how do you know?” McFadden asked, a trace of pride in his voice.

  “We know every punk in this precinct,” Willis said.

  “You finished with him, Artie?”

  “I’m finished with him.”

  “Good-by, McFadden.”

  “What’s extortion?” McFadden asked again.

  “Good-by,” Willis said again.

  The detective assigned to tailing Anthony La Bresca was Meyer Meyer. He was picked for the job because detectives aren’t supposed to be bald, and it was reasoned that La Bresca, already gun shy, would never tip to him. It was further reasoned that if La Bresca was really involved in a contemplated caper, it might be best not to follow him from his job to wherever he was going, but instead to be waiting for him there when he arrived. This presented the problem of second-guessing where he might be going, but it was recalled by one or another of the detectives that La Bresca had mentioned frequenting a pool hall on South Leary, and so this was where Meyer stationed himself at four o’clock that afternoon.

  He was wearing baggy corduroy trousers, a brown leather jacket, and a brown watch cap. He looked like a longshoreman or something. Actually, he didn’t know what he looked like, he just hoped he di
dn’t look like a cop. He had a matchstick in his mouth. He figured that was a nice touch, the matchstick. Also, because criminal types have an uncanny way of knowing when somebody is heeled, he was not carrying a gun. The only weapon on his person was a longshoreman’s hook tucked into the waistband of his trousers. If anyone asked him about the hook, he would say he needed it on the job, thereby establishing his line of work at the same time. He hoped he would not have to use the hook.

  He wandered into the pool hall, which was on the second floor of a dingy brick building, said “Hi,” to the man sitting behind the entrance booth, and then said, “You got any open tables?”

  “Pool or billiards?” the man said. He was chewing on a matchstick, too.

  “Pool,” Meyer said.

  “Take Number Four,” the man said, and turned to switch on the table lights from the panel behind him. “You new around here?” he asked, his back to Meyer.

  “Yeah, I’m new around here,” Meyer said.

  “We don’t dig hustlers,” the man said.

  “I’m no hustler,” Meyer answered.

  “Just make sure you ain’t.”

  Meyer shrugged and walked over to the lighted table. There were seven other men in the pool hall, all of them congregated around a table near the windows, where four of them were playing and the other three were kibitzing. Meyer unobtrusively took a cue from the rack, set up the balls, and began shooting. He was a lousy player. He kept mentally calling shots and missing. Every now and then he glanced at the door. He was playing for perhaps ten minutes when one of the men from the other table sauntered over.

  “Hi,” the man said. He was a burly man wearing a sports jacket over a woolen sports shirt. Tufts of black hair showed above the open throat of the shirt. His eyes were a deep brown, and he wore a black mustache that seemed to have leaped from his chest onto the space below his nose. The hair on his head was black too. He looked tough and he looked menacing, and Meyer immediately made him for the local cheese.

  “You play here before?” the man asked.

  “Nope,” Meyer said without looking up from the table.

  “I’m Tino.”

  “Hello, Tino,” Meyer said, and shot.

  “You missed,” Tino said.

  “That’s right, I did.”

  “You a hustler?” Tino said.

  “Nope.”

  “We break hustlers’ arms and throw them down the stairs,” Tino said.

  “The arms or the whole hustler?” Meyer asked.

  “I got no sense of humor,” Tino said.

  “Me, neither. Buzz off, you’re ruining my game.”

  “Don’t try to take nobody, mister,” Tino said. “This’s a friendly neighborhood pool hall.”

  “Yeah, you sure make it sound very friendly,” Meyer said.

  “It’s just we don’t like hustlers.”

  “I got your message three times already,” Meyer said.

  “Eight ball in the side.” He shot and missed.

  “Where’d you learn to shoot pool?” Tino said.

  “My father taught me.”

  “Was he as lousy as you?”

  Meyer didn’t answer.

  “What’s that in your belt there?”

  “That’s a hook,” Meyer said.

  “What’s it for?”

  “I use it,” Meyer said.

  “You work on the docks?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where?”

  “On the docks,” Meyer said.

  “Yeah, where on the docks?”

  “Look, friend,” Meyer said, and put down the pool cue and stared at Tino.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s it your business where I work?”

  “I like to know who comes in here.”

  “Why? You own the joint?”

  “My brother does.”

  “Okay,” Meyer said. “My name’s Stu Levine, I’m working the Leary Street docks right now unloading the S.S. Agda out of Sweden. I live downtown on Ridgeway, and I happened to notice there was a pool hall here, so I decided to come in and run off a few racks before heading home. You think that’ll satisfy your brother, or do you want to see my birth certificate?”

  “You Jewish?” Tino asked.

  “Funny 1 don’t look it, right?”

  “No, you do look it.”

  “So?”

  “So nothing. We get some Jewish guys from around the corner in here every now and then.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Is it okay to shoot now?”

  “You want company?”

  “How do I know you’re not a hustler?”

  “We’ll pay for time, how’s that?”

  “You’ll win,” Meyer said.

  “So what? It’s better than playing alone, ain’t it?”

  “I came up here to shoot a few balls and enjoy myself,” Meyer said. “Why should I play with somebody better than me? I’ll get stuck with the time, and you’ll be doing all the shooting.”

  “You could consider it a lesson.”

  “I don’t need lessons.”

  “You need lessons, believe me,” Tino said. “The way you shoot pool, it’s a disgrace.”

  “If I need lessons, I’ll get Minnesota Fats.”

  “There ain’t no real person named Minnesota Fats,” Tino said, “he was just a guy they made up,” which reminded Meyer that someone had named a fictitious character after him, and which further reminded him that he had not yet heard from Rollie Chabrier down at the D.A.’s office.

  “Looks like I’ll never get to shoot, anyway,” he said, “if you’re gonna stand here and gab all day.”

  “Okay?” Tino said.

  “Go ahead, take a cue,” Meyer said, and sighed. He felt he had handled the encounter very well. He had not seemed too anxious to be friendly, and yet he had succeeded in promoting a game with one of the pool hall regulars. When La Bresca walked in, if indeed he ever did, he would find Tino playing with his good old buddy Stu Levine from the Leary Street docks. Very good, Meyer thought, they ought to up me a grade tomorrow morning.

  “First off, you hold your cue wrong,” Tino said. “Here’s how you got to hold it if you expect to sink anything.”

  “Like this?” Meyer said, trying to imitate the grip.

  “You got arthritis or something?” Tino asked, and burst out laughing at his own joke, proving to Meyer’s satisfaction that he really did not have a sense of humor.

  Tino was demonstrating the proper English to put on the cue ball in order to have it veer to the left after contact, and Meyer was alternately watching the clock and the door when La Bresca walked in some twenty minutes later. Meyer recognized him at once from the description he’d been given, but turned away immediately, not wanting to seem at all interested, and listened to Tino’s explanation, and then listened to the meager joke Tino offered, something about the reason it’s called English is because if you hit an Englishman in the balls with a stick, they’ll turn white just like the cue ball on the table, get it? Tino laughed, and Meyer laughed with him, and that was what La Bresca saw as he approached the table, Tino and his good old buddy from the Leary Street docks, laughing it up and shooting a friendly game of pool in the friendly neighborhood pool hall.

  “Hi, Tino,” La Bresca said.

  “Hi, Tony.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “So-so. This here is Stu Levine.”

  “Glad to meet you,” La Bresca said.

  “Same here,” Meyer said, and extended his hand.

  “This here is Tony La Bresca. He shoots a good game.”

  “Nobody shoots as good as you,” La Bresca said.

  “Stu here shoots the way Angie used to. You remember Angie who was crippled? That’s the way Stu here shoots.”

  “Yeah, I remember Angie,” La Bresca said, and both men burst out laughing. Meyer laughed with them, what the hell.

  “Stu’s father taught him,” Tino said.

  “Yeah? Who taught his
father?” La Bresca said, and both men burst out laughing again.

  “I hear you got yourself a job,” Tino said.

  “That’s right.”

  “You just getting through?”

  “Yeah, I thought I’d shoot a game or two before supper. You see Calooch around?”

  “Yeah, he’s over there by the windows.”

  “Thought maybe I’d shoot a game with him.”

  “Why’nt you join us right here?” Tino said.

  “Thanks,” La Bresca said, “but I promised Calooch I’d shoot a game with him. Anyway, you’re too much of a shark.”

  “A shark, you hear that, Stu?” Tino said. “He thinks I’m a shark.”

  “Well, I’ll see you,” La Bresca said, and walked over to the window table. A tall thin man in a striped shirt was bent over the table, angling for a shot. La Bresca waited until he had run off three or four balls, and then they both went up to the front booth. The lights suddenly came on over a table across the hall. La Bresca and the man named Calooch went to the table, took sticks down, racked up the balls, and began playing.

  “Who’s Calooch?” Meyer asked Tino.

  “Oh, that’s Pete Calucci,” Tino said.

  “Friend of Tony’s?”

  “Oh, yeah, they know each other a long time.”

  Calooch and La Bresca were doing a lot of talking. They weren’t doing too much playing, but they sure were talking a lot. They talked, and then one of them took a shot, and then they talked some more, and after a while the other one took a shot, and it went like that for almost an hour. At the end of the hour, both men put up their sticks, and shook hands. Calooch went back to the window table, and La Bresca went up front to settle for the time. Meyer looked up at the clock and said, “Wow, look at that, already six o’clock. I better get home, my wife’ll murder me.”

  “Well, Stu, I enjoyed playing with you,” Tino said. “Stop in again sometime.”

  “Yeah, maybe I will,” Meyer said.

  The street outside was caught in the pale gray grasp of dusk, empty, silent except for the keening of the wind, bitterly cold, forbidding. Anthony La Bresca walked with his hands in the pockets of his beige car coat, the collar raised, the green muffler wound about his neck and flapping in the fierce wind. Meyer stayed far behind him, mindful of Kling’s embarrassing encounter the night before and determined not to have the same thing happen to an old experienced workhorse like himself. The cold weather and the resultant empty streets did not help him very much. It was comparatively simple to tail a man on a crowded street, but when there are only two people left alive in the world, the one up front might suddenly turn at the sound of a footfall or a tail-of-the-eye glimpse of something or someone behind him. So Meyer kept his distance and utilized every doorway he could find, ducking in and out of the street, grateful for the frantic activity that helped ward off the cold, convinced he would not be spotted, but mindful of the alternate risk he was running: if La Bresca turned a corner suddenly, or entered a building unexpectedly, Meyer could very well lose him.