They could not have been very secret, Bassett thought. “I’m not sure I understand,” he said.
“One group and then another—hand-picked of the men—where he brought in the labor organizer to talk to them. If they’d all got together at the same time, you see, they’d have run the man out in a hurry. But in a small group they’d listen, and every one of them would be asked to say something. And one would take his cue from the other, building up his own importance. These people are children, Mr. Bassett. The priest or the politician can lead them anywhere.”
“Still,” Bassett said, “it didn’t come to much in the end, did it? The plant still isn’t unionized.”
“It most certainly is, sir. They have their own union. James MacAndrews helped set it up for them.”
“Yes, of course. What I meant was, they have no outside affiliation.” He intended the word “outside” to conciliate her, giving it emphasis.
“They do not, but it’s not for want of Mr. Scully’s endeavor. He’s in constant correspondence with this, that and the other of them, making reports and surveys—I dare say.”
Bassett was very much aware of the “I dare say,” for it suddenly amended with caution an, until then, uninhibited flow of opinion and information. Someone had been providing MacAndrews with a regular account of Scully’s activities.
“Do you honestly think, Miss MacAndrews, that Scully could have had anything to do with your brother’s death?”
“I did not say that!” Her proud head quivered with the vehemence of her answer. “Whatever I think of Martin Scully—and I do not approve of his ideas for a minute—but I do not think he would strike a man behind his back. James had a certain respect for him, for all that they were enemies.”
“They had an actual fist-fight once, didn’t they?”
“They did, and it was a fair fight. James asked for it, and he got it. It was the only way he could keep the men’s respect. From then on he was manager in person as well as in name.”
Bassett nodded his understanding. “Did your brother say anything—or was there anything in his behavior to suggest that he was uneasy or perhaps even fearful lately?”
“I’ve already told you—the Mafia were out to get him.”
“He had had some sort of warning?”
“He had. Did you notice our front door was recently painted?”
“I did,” Bassett said.
“It was white till the day before yesterday. Sometime during Wednesday night a black hand was painted on it.”
“Painted—or was it a handprint?”
“It was the size of a man’s hand, if that’s what you mean.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“Mr. Kearns came to see it. James and he said it was a Halloween prank. But that was only to make me feel easier, I know.”
“Well, we’ll look into it just to be sure,” Bassett said. He picked up his hat from where he had set it on the rug at the side of the chair. “If there’s anything comes to your mind—or anything we can do, please call me—or the police chief.”
She rose stiffly with him. “I don’t suppose I’ll need protection—now that they’ve got James.”
“Unless you’ve got vital information, something that might lead to his killer, I shouldn’t think so.”
“I consider what I told you vital, Mr. Bassett.”
He said soothingly, “I probably should have said ‘specific’ information.”
“Isn’t a black hand specific enough?”
Lord, lord, he thought: what would it be like to live year in year out with a woman who pecked over her obsessions like a crow at a corpse? “Not when it’s been blacked out with a fresh coat of paint, Miss MacAndrews.”
Nonetheless he drove slowly along the River Road watching for other evidences of pre-Halloween mischief. Not many youngsters successful in the perpetration of one prank can resist the temptation to try another, and yet another until they are caught. But Bassett saw none, and when he reached the Hillside police station, he asked Kearns about it.
“Oh, hell,” the chief said. “I knew she’d tell you about that. She’s been hipped for years on that subject—the Mafia. Everybody knows it. I can tell you for a fact, Bassett, it was a kid’s prank.”
“If you say so,” Bassett said. He knew better than to antagonize Kearns by persistence over such an incident, but he would have liked to have had the matter more convincingly settled in his own mind.
Kearns was aware of his companion’s doubts. In the car, while they were driving around to the Graham plant office, the chief said, “You got kids?”
“Four of them.”
“What if one of your kids did a thing like that?”
“I’d give him a reason not to do it again,” Bassett said.
“But being the police chief, you wouldn’t advertise the fact that it was your own kid that did it?”
“No, I don’t suppose I would.”
“Some kids got big ears.” Kearns’ neck was showing high color.
Bassett grinned. “And big hands.”
Kearns glanced at him and smiled, a broad, warm smile that would make up for many shortcomings.
A meeting with the New York representative of the Graham Company was not Bassett’s notion of how best to proceed with the investigation of the murder, and several times during that half-hour session he was hard put to hold his temper. Kearns was treated as though he were in the company’s employ, not that of the people of Hillside. The company wanted the murderer found not so much for justice’s sake as to assure the stability of the plant. He heard for himself the dictum by which Graham had kept its employees in line for over a generation: “We’re under pressure now from our shareholders to close this plant and move the entire operation south.” It occurred to Bassett that just possibly history would pass Mr. Graham’s spokesman: one day soon, his southern management might just have to threaten to move that operation to Hillside.
Six men in all were present at the meeting: the day manager, the night foreman, the mayor of Hillside, Chief Kearns, Bassett, and the man from the top office, Alden Royce by name. At a well chosen moment Bassett said, “I was just thinking about the Brinks robbery in Boston a few years ago—some two million dollars. But it didn’t put Brinks out of business.”
“Meaning?”
“We’re by no means sure that there wasn’t an attempted robbery here last night. That would seem the most likely motive—to an impartial investigator. If such was the case, MacAndrews may have died in the line of duty.”
“That I have no doubt,” Royce said, and added quickly, “that he died in the line of duty.”
“Then why not vote his sister a compensatory tribute—and let the police get on with their work?”
Royce turned to the man sitting next to him. It happened to be the village mayor, Frank Covello. “Who is this man?” he said, referring to Bassett.
Covello wasn’t sure himself. Bassett answered, “I’m a detective, working out of the District Attorney’s office.”
“Ah-ha,” Royce said, as though now armed with a certain sinister knowledge of Bassett.
Bassett, giving not a damn for Royce or his operation north or south, nonetheless knew that to keep his own position sound in this case he had to justify himself with the local people. “I’m working under the instructions of Police Chief Kearns.”
“Then one of the first things in which Mr. Kearns should instruct you, young man, is the economic realities of Hillside.”
“Its economics are not my concern, sir. Nor, if I may say so, do I think they’re Chief Kearns’.”
Kearns rubbed the back of his heavy neck. “For a fact, that’s so,” he said. “In our house it’s my wife that handles all that business.”
Kearns’ seeming obtuseness mollified the company executive—and Bassett, getting to know the police chief, doubted that the remark came out of obtuseness. No quicker snare was ever laid for an arrogant, facile man than to set him at table with a ponderous one
.
Kearns, Bassett and Mayor Covello left the plant together.
Covello, a round, cheerful man who in his own home, and indeed in all things, was for peace at all costs, complained, “What does he want from us?”
“I was asking myself the same question,” Bassett said. “Do they want to close the plant? Are they looking for an excuse?”
“No, I don’t think it’s that,” Kearns said. “They’re making money. Paid an extra dividend last quarter. The thing is, it pays them sometimes to slow down part of the Hillside operation. The thing about Hillside is, they don’t have to work at capacity to make a profit. And the population here’s been geared to capacity since the war. In other words we got more people than jobs to go around.”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about economics,” Bassett said.
The chief grinned. “Is that economics?”
Bassett took a long look at the grounds of the plant, his first good view of them by daylight. He pointed to the single boxcar on the tracks. “Any idea what that’s used for?” He had not yet received the laboratory report on the scrapings he had ordered taken from the stained floorboards.
“Getting out of date now, aren’t they?” the mayor said. “The trucks have taken over. Not that I mind, of course, since that’s my business.” He turned a puckish sort of face up to Bassett’s and stuck out his hand. “Glad to have met you.” To Kearns he said, “Let me know if there’s any way I can help out.” He got into his car and drove off.
Bassett realized that neither man had answered his question on the boxcar. “I want to have another look over there by daylight.”
Kearns nodded and followed him. Bassett had wondered if he would. He pointed out the beer cans, cigaret packages. Kearns said nothing. It was in the shadow of the car that the chief stooped down and picked up a woman’s stocking. He scowled, looking at it. “What the hell is this?”
Bassett looked to see what he had. “Well! That makes a pair. I found one last night.” He took a cellophane bag from his pocket and held it open so that Kearns could drop his find into it. “The other one’s at the lab … I wonder if they’re mates.” He thought about it for a moment. “Interesting. Now … the boxcar.”
“I can tell you what it’s not used for,” Kearns said.
Bassett looked at him.
“It’s not used for hanging silk stockings outside of,” Kearns said.
Bassett laughed. “Nylon,” he said. “But I agree with you—silk stockings sound much better, don’t they? Nothing sensuous about nylon.”
At the last minute before Bassett would have rolled open the door, the police chief said, “I know what the car’s used for.”
Bassett turned back. “I … thought you might,” he admitted. “What about the mayor? Was I putting him on the spot, too?”
“Man, you sure were. It’s him raises the cocks up on the hill there.”
It took Bassett a few seconds to grasp the significance of what Kearns had just told him; suddenly then he realized what the stains were: blood drawn from each other by fighting gamecocks. And the smell: it had been chicken dung!
“Jesus Christ,” he said with considerable fervor.
Bassett and Kearns dropped in together to see Pete Morietti, owner of the Crazy Cat. Pete was scraping the grill at the back of the shop and the smell of cooking fat mingled with the faint fumes from the space heater. Both were odors associable with poverty in Bassett’s mind, taking him back to his days of case work in the city tenements when he little dreamed he would wind up in law enforcement. The two men sat down at the counter. Pete, hard of hearing, was unaware that they were there. He had no other customers. A small, tinny radio was tuned in to the Italian Hour. The jukebox was silent.
Kearns said, “How did you get into police work?”
Bassett said, “I was just wondering the same thing myself. Why, the army made an M.P. of me. They kept me on the other side for a long time, working with refugees. When I got back I went to work out of the Kings County D.A.’s office—on juvenile delinquency. I was married—I have four youngsters. A few years ago I got caught in the crossfire of a gang war. My wife said enough. I wasn’t going to be much use in that area any more, anyway. Nobody confides in a cop who’s been beaten up; they figure he has a grudge. So we came out to a healthy environment.”
Kearns grunted. “It’s a hell of a way to make a living, ain’t it?” Environment was something he thought very little about.
“Sometimes.”
Kearns called out, “Hey, Pete!”
Morietti turned and squinted at them over the top of his glasses. He shuffled forward, bringing the grill pan and replacing it over the burners. He wiped the grease from his hands on his apron, and turned off the radio. Without asking, he brought two coffee mugs from under the counter and filled them with a thick, black brew. “Why don’t you speak?” Pete pointed to his bad ear.
Kearns shouted an introduction.
“I can hear,” Pete said, pointing then to his good ear. He gave Bassett his hand across the counter—a cold hand that felt as boneless as rubber.
Kearns had promised that Morietti would be able to tell them very little. He was short-sighted as well as partially deaf, and he seemed likely to fulfill the chief’s promise.
“They come and go like hungry cats,” he explained. “Sometimes a dozen times a night. They got a path worn inside and out to the telephone booth. Who do they call, I sometimes wonder. Everybody’s in here. But in and out, all night.”
Slowly, with coaxing and prompting, the two policemen compiled a list of seventeen names, local teen-agers who Morietti was reasonably sure had been in the shop the night before. When he mentioned Georgie Rocco, he said, “The Rocco house burned to ashes, eh?”
The chief nodded.
“The wages of sin.” The old man shook his head.
“Do you remember what time the boy left here?” Bassett asked, for Rocco was the youngster with whom he had to check out Martin Scully’s story of wanting to use the phone booth.
Pete said, “The only time I know for sure is eleven o’clock. That’s when I start to close up the shop.” He thought for a moment. “At eleven o’clock his girl friend was still here, I can tell you that.” He shrugged. “Maybe they had a fight.”
“Or maybe he got a new girl,” Bassett suggested.
Kearns said, “The kids in this town are pretty settled that way. They like going steady.”
He and Kearns compiled a second list of names: three boys and two girls who had been in the shop at closing time. Bassett drank as much as he could of the bitter coffee, and they moved on.
The sun shone brightly on the motley fronts of the buildings facing east, making them if anything less attractive in daytime than at night. Here and there a cheap composition facade had been layered over the timbered walls fronting the streets. Incongruous, the gingerbread eaves of a prettier day in Hillside architecture remained on a building, giving it the aspect of a child-made valentine. All the store windows were streaked with soap, reminding Bassett again of the approach of Halloween. A few cars were parked along the street. A woman was going into the drugstore. The delivery boy for the Village Market was loading a station wagon. He waved at Kearns. Bassett remembered him from the firehouse the night before.
“What did Morietti mean—about the wages of sin? He was talking about the fire last night.”
Kearns unwrapped a cigar and made a point to throw the cellophane into the waste container on which there was a sign HELP KEEP HILLSIDE CLEAN. God knows, help was needed to that purpose. “Well,” he said, biting the nub off the cigar and spitting it out, “there’s talk about the kid’s mother. I went to high school with Catherine Rocco myself. Even in those days, she was what the fellows called easy—if you were the right fellow, that is. I never was myself. There always has been talk—even when her husband was alive. But I’ll tell you this: she’s raised one of the sweetest girls this or any other town ever saw—Johanna. I told you about her, d
idn’t I—going with Martin Scully?”
“I guess you did mention it.” Bassett was looking at the window of the laundromat across the street: open twenty-four hours a day. He watched a woman go in with a bag of clothes. “Let’s have a look over there,” he said.
The moment they walked in, the woman said, “I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Kearns. Just look at this place. You should close it up if they don’t keep it clean.”
Her complaint was more than justified: half the machines were clogged with dirty water. In some of them work clothes seemed to have been abandoned halfway through the washing. Powdered soap lay in mounds like blue sand. Empty soda bottles were strewn everywhere.
“Is it always like this?” Bassett asked.
“Mister,” the woman said, “I consider myself lucky if I don’t have to wash my clothes over when I get them home.”
Kearns looked at his watch. “I’m going over and get a warrant and close it up right now.”
“Let’s do it without a warrant,” Bassett said. “Let’s roll the technical crew down here—just on the chance that somebody dumped his dirty clothes here last night. Got a padlock?”
“I know where I can get one,” Kearns said.
“Better save your wash for next week,” Bassett said to the woman. “This place is temporarily closed.”
“Where do you come from, mister?” the woman asked, hitching up her bag of wash.
“I live in Newport,” Bassett said.
Inexplicably, the woman had got into a temper with him. “If you don’t like the way we do things in Hillside, why don’t you do your wash in your own town?”
And that, Bassett thought, was how things could be in Hillside.
While he waited for Kearns to return with the lock, he watched, grimly fascinated, while a man with no legs maneuvered himself across the street on what looked like roller skates beneath the platform on which his torso was supported. Kearns passed the cripple on his way back, bidding him time of day.
“Poor devil,” Bassett said.
“Ah, Billy’s happy enough—in his own way. He wouldn’t thank you for sympathy. Or for much else either.”
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