Exceptional Clearance

by William Caunitz

  Vanessa Brown had been talking to her husband, discussing the dilemma of what to do with her mother. They had already decided that they would raise Mary’s children, but her mother was a different problem. They wanted to sell the house and have her come live with them, but her mother refused to leave her home of thirty years.

  Vanessa was about to say something to her husband when the commotion at the front door made her tell her husband to hold on while she went and checked.

  Peeking out from behind the vestibule curtains, she saw several uniformed policemen. Opening the door only a crack, she shouted, “What do you want?”

  One of them yelled back, “Open up! You’re in danger. Lieutenant Vinda sent us.”

  She took the chain off, and one of the policemen pulled her roughly out onto the stoop while the rest of them barged into the house.

  “Where’s your mother?” one of them demanded.

  “Upstairs,” she said in a frightened voice, watching some of them rush up the staircase.

  Vinda arrived fifteen minutes later and found Vanessa talking to her husband on the telephone. “I need that,” he told her. After she hung up, he dialed Thelma Johnston’s home. Ken Hayes, the policeman brother-in-law of the victim, answered. “Is everything all right there?” Vinda asked him.

  “Yeah, Lou,” Hayes answered. “We got a houseful of cops.”

  “Good. Any of my people around?”

  Marsella’s voice came on the line. “Yeah, Lou?”

  “Anything?”

  “No sign of him, Lou.”

  “I’ve made arrangements to have both families guarded around the clock, starting now.”

  “We shudda figured he’d go for the other daughters too.”

  Before Vinda could answer him, one of the policemen came in off the back porch and gestured the Whip outside. Stretching the cord over to the doorway, he looked out and saw the cut-out circle of glass in the storm door, as well as the snow tracks leading to and from the porch. He gave a long sigh of released tension. “I’ll get back to you,” he snapped, and hung up.

  Driving along Hanson Place, Worthington glanced into South Elliott Place and saw the flashing turret lights of the police cars. It was time for Dinny’O to destroy Vinda and the rest of his evil disciples. Turning the car onto Flatbush Avenue and the approach to the Manhattan Bridge, he began turning over in his mind various ways to rid himself of his tormentors.

  Emergency Service floodlights illuminated the backyard as policemen searched for other signs made by the killer.

  Vinda stood by, watching a crime-scene detective make a plaster cast of the killer’s footprints. The detective shook a thin coat of talcum powder over the snow print. Using a spray can, he sprayed shellac over the talcum. He added more talcum while the shellac was still wet, and repeated the operation several times until a skinlike layer of talcum and shellac protected the footprint. Reaching into his kit, the detective took out a bag of fine-grade plaster of Paris that he sprinkled over a pint of water. The plaster of Paris spread across the top of the water and sank to the bottom of the cup. When that happened, the detective stirred the mixture and poured it into the snow print. He did not fill the impression, but stopped when it was about one-third full to add small twigs he had gathered for reinforcement. When that was done, he poured in another layer and allowed it to harden.

  Watching the detective, Vinda thought that now he had the perp’s footprints, but still not a clue to what the bastard looked like.

  Walking up to the entrance of police headquarters, Worthington peered inside, saw the two security choke points, and turned away.

  Strolling around to the side of the building, he strode down the wide steps to a side entrance, looked inside, saw another security choke point, and continued down the steps to Madison Street. In front of him were five Greek Revival columns. One of them had a plaque that said the columns had been retained from the façade of the Rhinelander Building, which had been on the site before the construction of the present building.

  Pretending interest in the vertical shafts, capitals, and cornices, Worthington looked over at the driveway leading down into the underground garage and carefully noted the two brick guardhouses that flanked the driveway. Only one of them was manned. The policeman inside the booth seemed to be preoccupied with some reading material because every time a car slowed in front of the guardhouse, the policeman inside would give the man behind the wheel a superficial glance and wave him down into the garage.

  Worthington watched him do this three times, and knew he had discovered the weak link in the chain that he had been searching for. Looking around him, he saw that Madison Street was deserted. He gave a long, satisfied sigh. Dinny’O had already formed his plan for dealing with Vinda. All that was needed was to lure him into the web. He looked at his watch: Thursday, 10:10 P.M.

  Yes, early Monday morning would do nicely, very nicely.

  The Versailles Room of Park Avenue’s Royal Crescent Hotel was an upscale piano bar with an upscale clientele.

  Morty Hymowitz had stationed himself at the end of the marble bar so that he could take in everything that happened. A tuxedoed black man was at the ivories, crooning Cole Porter. Hymowitz was too preoccupied with the singer to notice the businessman with stylishly layered hair who had just come over and ordered a drink. Some minutes went by, and Hymowitz listened as the velvety voice sang a succession of love songs. An attractive woman strolled into the room and caught his attention. She smiled at the piano player and ambled over to the bar, discreetly sizing up the clientele.

  The businessman watched as her eyes sought out the bartender. He saw the man behind the stick tilt his head toward Hymowitz, and the woman’s eyes flickered in acknowledgment as she went over to Hymowitz and gracefully seated herself on the vacant stool next to the theatrical agent.

  The man with the expensive haircut took out his handkerchief, brushed it across his mouth, and said, “Our pigeon has a hooker on his branch.”

  Brooklyn’s 60th Precinct, a serene limestone cube with the chaos of Coney Island flowing into and out of its doors, had extravagant art moderne lanterns flanking its entrance. The station house was located on West Eighth Street, and the precinct’s boundaries included Brighton Beach, a middle-class Jewish neighborhood that had in recent years been transformed into Little Odessa by thousands of Soviet emigrés. Russian-language newspapers were sold in candy stores and on newsstands. Signs lettered in Cyrillic cluttered store windows, and Russian was spoken virtually everywhere.

  It was late Thursday night when Vinda parked in front of the Six-oh. Getting out of the car, he went inside the station house and walked over to the sergeant enthroned behind the high desk. Showing the sergeant his shield, Vinda asked, “The Samovar Squad, Sarge?”

  A poster of Lenin preaching to the masses and a blood red flag emblazoned with a crossed hammer and sickle decorated the walls of the second-floor office.

  A man somewhere in his thirties, with broad shoulders and insolent eyes, sat behind a desk, spooning soup into his mouth. Vinda walked into the office and introduced himself.

  “Jerry Petrovich, Lou,” the man said, breaking off a chunk of black bread and asking, “Like some?”

  “Is it borscht?”

  “Naw. Borscht is beet soup. This is real Russian borscht; it’s made with cow parsnips. Some friends in the precinct send it in to us.”

  Reaching to the side, Petrovich pulled out the bottom drawer of a file cabinet and took out eating utensils, including a bowl with a badly chipped rim. Picking up the plastic container from his desk, he poured borscht into the bowl.

  Spooning up some soup, Vinda asked, “How many Russian-speaking cops are assigned to the Samovar Squad?”

  “Five of us, Lou. We’re sort of an anti-crime, community-relations, intelligence-gathering unit.” Dunking bread into the yellow mash, he added, “The telephone message directed us to render all possible assistance. Qué pasa, Lou?”

  “Are you familiar with the underg
round medical network the emigrés got going here?”

  “The Russkies got themselves a thriving business. Word is they even have a hospital stashed someplace within the command.”

  Vinda took out the photograph of Frank Griffin and leaned it up against the base of the fluorescent desk lamp so that it faced Petrovich. “I have reason to believe that a Russian dentist made this guy a pair of razor-sharp fangs.”

  Petrovich glanced up at the photo, and went back to his soup. “The recent wave of homicides?”

  “Yes. In January of ’80 the guy in the photo borrowed ten large. Now that’s a serious piece of change, and it makes me think that maybe in addition to his fangs he also had his appearance changed.”

  Petrovich tossed a chunk of sodden bread into his mouth. “’At’s eleven years ago. A lot of people have come and gone since then.”

  “Will you nose around, show the photograph to the right people?”

  Petrovich took out two pleated paper cups and an unlabeled bottle of clear liquid. He poured some into each cup and handed one over to Vinda, saying, “Homemade pepper vodka.”

  “Friends in the precinct?”

  “Of course.”

  Vinda sipped the drink. “Smooth stuff.”

  “Be careful with it. Two or three belts of this, and your balls start doing the bunny hop.” He crumpled the cup and tossed it into the wastebasket. “I’ll see what I can find out for you. But you have to understand that the people around here don’t have much respect for our criminal justice system, so we don’t have much leverage with them.” The cop smiled as he leaned forward, caressing his forefinger with his thumb, gesturing money.

  “How much?”

  “Have to negotiate. But if you’re in a hurry, it’s the fastest way.”

  “Do whatever you gotta do, but get me that information.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  When Vinda returned to his office early Friday morning, he found the two detectives who had tailed Hymowitz to the Versailles Room waiting. Hanging up his coat, Vinda looked at the bleary-eyed detectives and asked, “How’s our friend Vinny?”

  The one with the designer hair said, “He left the bar ’round midnight with a hooker. We tailed him to a location in the West Village. They resurfaced around three, and we saw Vinny Boy put the hooker into a cab. We decided to go for the broad. She got out at Fifteenth and Fifth, and we scooped her up.”

  “Was the lady cooperative?” Vinda asked as he moved behind his desk and sat down.

  The other detective, an older man with thinning gray hair and a vivid scar on his face, replied, “Most definitely. Especially after I explained to her my responsibility to report all violations of the Federal Tax Code, and what the tax consequences of her unreported income might be. According to the lady, our boy is a regular, and he’s into kinky in a big, big way.”

  After the SID detectives had gone, Vinda got on the phone to Malcolm Webster and asked for some additional favors. “Whatever you need,” the dead girl’s father promised.

  Vinda made one more call after that, and then left for the fourteenth floor.

  “I’m going to need some money to buy information,” he told Sam Staypress. Leventhal was handling the case at the command level, bypassing everyone in the chain of command. He was keenly aware that the case that had made him PC could also break him.

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Go down to Audit and Accounts and get it out of the confidential fund. Do whatever you have to do, but clear this damn case.”

  Returning to his office, Vinda found Agueda and Hagstrom typing reports while they had their morning coffee. He beckoned the women outside, led them into the corridor, and, leaning up against the brick wall, avoiding their prying eyes, told them that he was going trick-or-treating with Hymowitz.

  Keeping his voice low, Vinda laid out his plan. “I think this guy has important information that he refuses to give up.” His eyes dropped to the floor, then came up, meeting Agueda’s. “It’s distasteful, I know that, so it’s strictly a volunteer job. You can both pass and I’ll get an undercover out of Narcotics.”

  “I’ll do it,” Agueda said, without a trace of hesitation.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant, I’m sure.”

  Shortly before ten that morning, a portly man carrying a suitcase came into the office and announced, “I’m Sid Williams, Malcolm Webster’s squib man. I’m looking for a Lieutenant Vinda.”

  A little later, Inspector Acevedo came in with the Pizza Squad detectives Vinda had requested: Amandola and Bosco.

  Looking over the detectives from the squad used to infiltrate criminal networks, Vinda thought, These guys really look the part.

  With all the players present, Vinda introduced Williams and the Pizza Squad detectives to the other members of the cast, and proceeded to tell them what he had planned for Morty Hymowitz.

  “I like it,” Marsella said.

  “I’ll now turn it over to Sid,” Vinda said.

  The squib man looked at the two female detectives and asked, “Who’s playing Scarlett?”

  “I am,” Agueda said.

  Clicking open his suitcase, Williams said, “For this melodrama to play, split-second timing is an absolute.”

  He pulled a black negligee out of the suitcase and displayed it before them, adding, “The gown is lined on the inside with Kevlar body armor. Between the gown and the armor we insert little packets of animal blood and explosive squibs that will rupture the packets when we set them off with a radio signal.”

  Talking directly to Agueda, he explained, “Body squibs are torso-impacting, so when I set them off you are going to feel as though you’ve just taken a solid shot to the gut. Can you handle that?”

  “I think so,” Agueda said cautiously, then she asked, “How many rounds are you going to set off?”

  “Probably only one,” Williams said, sliding his eyes over her body and adding, “Don’t let the pigeon’s hands roam over you, because if he does, he’ll feel the Kevlar and the packets.”

  “I understand,” she said, looking directly at Vinda.

  Williams reached into his suitcase and came out with two revolvers. Handing them to Bosco and Amandola, he said, “These are props that only fire blanks, so please don’t get them confused with your own weapons. Now, I’ll bust in with you, and if you play your roles right, the pigeon will be so scared that he won’t even know I’m there.”

  Holding up his remote control, he went on to say, “When you fire, I’ll fire. Remember, you’re supposed to be pros, so don’t go crazy and start shooting up the place. One round should do it—and remember, squibs hurt the person they go off on. Any questions?” he asked, darting his eyes from detective to detective. “Good. Since there are none, I’d like all the actors to adjourn with me to the set. I want to choreograph this playlet.”

  After they had gone, Moose handed Vinda the phone, saying, “For you, wouldn’t give his name.”

  “Lieutenant Vinda?”

  “Yes.”

  “I killed all those women.”

  Another space cadet, Vinda thought, saying, “Sure you did, pal.”

  The low voice had a brogue. “My name is Dinny’O.”

  Vinda sat up in his seat, straining to catch every word, motioning Moose and Marsella quiet. “If you’re the man, prove it. We get a lot of crank calls.”

  “The Eternal One grows fangs in my mouth at the time of sacrifice, and He commands me to do those awful things.”

  Vinda could hear heavy breathing at the other end of the line. “What do you want?”

  “Forgiveness. If I surrender, will I be forgiven?”

  Vinda held the mouthpiece away from him, staring at the circle of pinholes. Space cadets don’t surrender, he thought, but he put the phone to his ear and said, “Absolutely. I promise.”

  Worthington stepped away from the pay phone and was swallowed by Grand Central’s crowd. He exited the station at Forty-secon
d Street and hailed a taxi. Settling into the backseat, he directed the driver to take him to 60 Hudson Street.

  Vinda hurried down the marble staircase into Grand Central’s graceful rotunda, and, as he had been instructed by Dinny’O, walked over to the information booth.

  Moose and Marsella entered a little later and encamped on stools in the open-air bar at the head of the staircase.

  Standing in front of the booth, Vinda watched travelers dash over to the clerks, seeking train schedules. If this guy was serious about giving himself up, this was the perfect place for him to do it, he thought: crowded, plenty of exits and vantage points to see if it was a setup—and too many prying eyes to prevent the police from doing a dance on his head, or worse. He checked the time: 11:30. They had an hour to wait to see if Dinny’O was for real.

  The taxi drove into Hudson Street, a boulevard of gloomy factories and warehouses, and stopped in front of number 60. Worthington paid the driver, got out, and went into the building’s lobby. After consulting the directory, he took the elevator up to the fifth floor, then entered the door bearing the legend DEPARTMENT OF BUILDINGS, ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS.

  Three years ago, Worthington had played the role of a detective in a movie thriller about a detective’s search for an elusive killer. He had stolen his realistic-looking police credentials from the prop trailer. Now he flashed those bogus credentials at the clerk on the desk. “Morning, I’m with the police department’s Engineering Bureau. I need to see the drawings for One Police Plaza.”

  The clerk looked at his identification, wrote his name down in the log along with the nature of his request, and looked up the file number of the drawings for police headquarters.

  Sitting at a drafting table fifteen minutes later in an office in the building, Worthington took out several sheets of tracing paper and began to trace the blueprint page he had selected from the tray of drawings.

  The suburban shopping rush gushed through Grand Central Station as Vinda looked at his watch: 1:30 P.M. Galled at being had, he shrugged haplessly up at Marsella and Moose, and walked away from the information booth. Going up the staircase with an uneasy feeling bubbling in his stomach, he asked himself, What is this space cadet up to? Why drag me here to wait for nothing to happen? I’ll find out soon enough, I suppose. If this guy is Worthington, he’s outthought me every step of the way.