Long Way Down (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  Walking slowly, holding the unlit flashlight down at my side, I crossed the silent street. On the far sidewalk I paused, standing motionless. From somewhere deep inside the rectangular hatchwork of girders and darkness I heard a small, furtive scrape of movement. I drew my service revolver, careful that Ann didn’t see. Slowly, step by step, I moved forward, uncertain of my footing on the debris-strewn ground. What did I expect to find? A dog rooting in the rubble? A prankster? Waywardly, I was thinking that I was doing a patrolman’s job—after hours, for love. Literally for love. I was—

  Another rustle of movement. Something—someone—was in there. Crouching low, with my revolver in my right hand and the still-darkened flashlight in my left, both probing forward, I was moving close to the concrete foundation buttress, keeping to its shadow. Just ahead I made out the pale oblongs of plywood sheets, lying on the ground. If I walked on the sheets, and they shifted, I would reveal myself. I would …

  A shadow distorted the geometric symmetry of a thick upright pillar. Instantly I drew back the revolver’s hammer, at the same time clicking on the flashlight. “Hold it right there.”

  Leaping, the figure of a man vaulted a low wall, tumbling on the far side. Gone. As he’d leaped over, I’d seen the unmistakable outline of a gun clutched in his right hand—a sawed-off-shotgun shape. A submachine-gun shape.

  Clicking the flashlight off, I was scrambling for the pillar he’d just left. My feet slid wildly on the plywood oblongs. Falling to one knee on the wood, I heard fabric rip. It was my newest suit. Two hundred dollars. Up again, jinxing, I dodged behind the pillar, safe.

  Would a blast from his gun rip through the darkness?

  Panting, fighting the throat-clogged hammering of my heartbeat, I looked quickly back to my car. Inside, I could see Ann’s head. Could she see me? Had she heard the chase—seen his gun? Desperately, I willed her to go into her flat, call Police Dispatch, send me help. But I’d told her to stay inside the car, doors locked. I’d …

  From the far side of the low wall came a soft, furtive scuttle of movement, drawing away. He was frightened, then—ready to run. I should let him go. Without reinforcements, I should let him go.

  But, silently, I was stepping away from the safety of the pillar. Bent double, head below the level of the wall, I was duck-waddling toward the movement I’d heard. The sound had come from the far end, where the wall joined the foundation buttress. Deliberately, I scraped my feet, making noise. If I could …

  Footsteps were running, leaving the wall, escaping. I placed my flashlight on top of the wall, vaulted over, grabbed the flashlight.

  “Police officer. Halt, or I’ll fire.”

  I saw his shadow wildly running. Momentarily his silhouette was streetlight-limned. I could see both his arms, flung wide as he ran. I could clearly see his hands, empty. Straightening, I was running—fighting for footing in the debris. He was …

  The running silhouette pitched forward, falling heavily. I heard him grunt, then softly swear. A dozen strides, and I was standing over him. In the glare of my flashlight beam his eyes were wild.

  “Roll over.” Easing the revolver’s hammer off, I jammed the barrel into his neck, below the ear. “Now.”

  “Don’t shoot. I haven’t done anything.”

  “You’ve got a gun. Where is it?”

  “What gun?” His anguished voice was high, fear-cracked.

  “Roll over.”

  When he obeyed, I jammed my knee in the small of his back, slipped my revolver into my waistband and quickly cuffed him. “All right. On your feet.” I jerked him up, shining the light full in his face.

  “What’re you doing, anyhow?” he shrilled. Standing with spindly legs braced wide, he tossed his greasy, half-long hair back from his eyes. He was in his early twenties. He wore faded Levi’s and a torn leather jacket, mud-stained down the front. His twitching face was blotched and pale; his eyes blinked away from the flashlight, their pupils enlarged. He was a junkie.

  Holstering my gun, slipping the flashlight into my jacket pocket, I glanced back over my shoulder. Ann was still inside the car. On the street nothing stirred. The brief, silent chase had gone unnoticed. We were standing close beside a tall pile of lumber, still metal-banded. Suddenly I grabbed the front of his jacket, jamming him back against the wood. His head bounced—once, twice. His protests were rattling in his throat, suddenly panic-choked.

  “Where’s the goddamn gun?” I sunk my fingers into his exposed throat.

  “It wasn’t a gun. There’s no gun.”

  “What’d you have in your hand, then?”

  Desperately shaking his head, eyes wild, he began to sob.

  “All right,” I said. “It’s your ass. What’s your name?”

  “Bl—Blake. Sonny Blake.”

  “You’re going to spend the night in jail. Do you know that, Sonny?” As I spoke, I relaxed my grip on his throat. He sagged toward me, almost falling. I turned him around, pushing him toward the street. “All right, walk.” I hooked the fingers of my left hand into the handcuffs. “Slow and easy, Sonny.” With my right hand I drew the flashlight, searching the littered, mud-puddled ground as I walked. I saw a short length of conduit, but no gun. Could it have been the conduit that I’d seen? Was I arresting a harmless vagrant? It had happened before.

  I threw him into the back of my car and watched him while Ann called Dispatch. A black-and-white car arrived in minutes. I ordered that Blake be booked and that the construction site be searched for a gun the next morning. I watched the patrol car clear the area. Then I softly knocked on Ann’s front door.

  “Come in the living room,” she whispered. “I don’t want to wake the children.” She was still wearing her coat, but she’d slipped off her shoes. Her eyes were wide and somber.

  I followed her into the living room and sat close beside her on the couch, taking her hand. She’d lit a single lamp, dim in a far corner. Like a frightened child’s, her fingers worked within mine, seeking silent comfort.

  “Have you ever seen him before?” I asked quietly.

  “No. Wh—who is he, Frank?”

  “His name is Sonny Blake. To me, he looks like a small-time hustler. Possibly a drug addict.”

  “But what does he want?” As she asked the question, her voice faltered.

  “I don’t think it’s anything serious, Ann. Are you absolutely sure somebody’s been watching you?”

  “Well—” She hesitated. “It’s been more of a feeling, I guess. But last week Billy said that he saw someone looking over the back fence.”

  “Billy’s only ten, Ann.”

  “I know. Still …” Suddenly she shivered, snuggling closer.

  “Did Billy describe the person he saw?”

  “Yes. Vaguely. And—” She bit her lip. “And it fits this Sonny Blake, Frank. Dirty-looking, longish brown hair, slim.”

  “Did Billy see him more than once?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone else see him?”

  “I—Marcie might have. When we were talking about my taking her cabin this weekend, she mentioned that she saw someone in the parking lot at school, watching me.”

  “Same description?”

  She nodded. Her eyes had fallen, fixed on my trousers. “You’re all muddy,” she said. “And your pants are torn.”

  “I know.” I put my arm around her shoulder. “I don’t want you to worry about this, Ann,” I whispered. “It’s nothing. We’re going to check it out—make certain. But I can tell you—it’s nothing.”

  Meekly, she nodded. “Yes.” Her eyes were still cast down.

  Speaking firmly, I said, “I’m going home. You’ll be all right. To make sure, I’ll have a radio car check the house. Tomorrow morning, first chance you get, I want you to call me at the office. Will you?”

  I could feel her gathering herself. “Yes,” she answered steadily. “Yes, I’ll call you.”

  Together we rose. Side by side, with our arms circling each other’s waist, we walke
d through the dimly lit entryway to the front door. Gently, chastely, we kissed goodnight, then gravely looked at each other, at arm’s length.

  “I saw you fighting with him, Frank,” she said finally. “I saw you throw him against that stack of lumber.” Her eyes faltered, then fell. “It—it frightened me. The violence, I mean. It frightened me. Do you”—she raised her eyes, mutely pleading—“do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes,” I answered softly, “I know what you mean. I know exactly what you mean.”

  “I—I’m sorry. I know you—you did it for me.”

  I considered a moment, still holding her. Then, speaking deliberately, I said, “I only did it partly for you, Ann. Partly I did it because it’s my job. It—it’s not something I can really explain. But it’s my job.”

  Still with her eyes raised, seeking mine, she said softly, “I can’t explain it, either. My—my reaction, I mean. That’s what I can’t explain.”

  Not replying, I took her face in both hands, kissing her. “You go to sleep now. Have a brandy and go to sleep. Don’t worry. And remember, phone me in the morning, between classes. Promise?”

  She promised. We kissed one last time, then said goodnight.

  Two

  AS I UNLOCKED MY office door the next morning, I heard the clump of a familiar step behind me. Turning, I saw Pete Friedman, my senior co-lieutenant. Pointedly, he glanced at his watch as he motioned me into my own office with the long-suffering gesture of a grammar school teacher shooing his flock ahead. “It’s lucky,” he said, “that one of us is an early riser.”

  “I didn’t get home until two o’clock,” I objected, slipping into my swivel chair and motioning him to a seat across the desk.

  “You look it.” He levered his two hundred forty pounds from one side to the other, grunting as he searched first for a cigar, then for matches.

  “I read not too long ago,” I said, “that Freud got cancer of the jaw from smoking cigars.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Friedman grunted, lighting the cigar. “I’m Jewish, too.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that lots of Jews have a death wish. Else why would I be a policeman?” He shook out the match and threw it, still smoking, into my wastebasket. As I leaned over my desk to stare at the basket, Friedman settled himself in his chair, gratefully sighing. It was Friedman’s contention that my visitor’s armchair fitted him better than his own—accounting, doubtless, for his constant presence across my desk, squinting at me through a perpetual cloud of cigar smoke as he laconically made plans. Friedman was the homicide squad’s strategist—its inside man. I operated in the field.

  “I see what you mean about death wishes,” I said, still eyeing the wastebasket. “Death by burning.”

  “Don’t worry,” he replied. “You won’t be around long enough for the fire.”

  I decided simply to wait, perversely declining the gambit. Announcing some new development, Friedman took a cat-and-mouse pleasure in building the suspense. The script seldom varied. Receiving the call on a homicide that involved more than the usual drunken Saturday-night domestic bludgeoning, or a mugging that turned into murder, Friedman invariably came down the corridor to my office, slumped into my armchair and lit a cigar. Then he began dropping hints.

  “We have a homicide in affluent Sea Cliff,” he said finally. “Don’t take off your coat.”

  Nodding, I reached for a notepad.

  “The victim is one Flora Esterbrook Gaines, female Caucasian, age seventy. Address, 1376 Sea Cliff Avenue.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Just a little after midnight, last night. It seems to be a robbery-and-murder thing. But since the victim pays—paid—more in annual property taxes than the combined value of our two salaries, the department naturally wants to put on its best, most convincing full-dress performance. Provided, of course, you’re up to it after your exertions last night, collaring Sonny Blake.” He paused, puffed on the cigar and eyed me with sidelong speculation. “It doesn’t look right,” he said finally, “for someone of your rank and position to collar petty hoods single-handedly. It sets a bad example, especially for those of us who are, ah, a little out of condition. I just thought I’d mention it.”

  “Where’s Sonny Blake now?” I asked, at the same time wearily riffling through the stack of interrogation reports awaiting my initials.

  “He’s in a holding cell. What happened, anyhow?”

  Briefly, I told him. As he listened, an inch-long ash fell from Friedman’s cigar, bounced off the mound of his stomach and dropped to the floor. Absently brushing at his vest—succeeding only in smudging the ash stain—he said, “Do you want me to interrogate Sonny Blake for you?”

  “If you want to. I don’t think—” My phone rang. I answered impatiently, then listened as an unfamiliar voice said, “This is Patrolman Les Matthews, Lieutenant. I was ordered, first thing this morning, to make a search of the construction site in the nineteen-hundred block of Buchanan, looking for a possible ditched gun. I was told that I should report to you.”

  “That’s right, Matthews. Did you find anything?”

  “We didn’t find a gun, Lieutenant. But we did find what appears to be a shotgun mike.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right, sir. We found it down in a pile of scrap lumber, just beside the north wall of the foundation.”

  “Are you sure it’s a shotgun mike?”

  “Well, I’m no electronics expert. But that’s what it looks like to me. Do you want us to bring it down to the Hall?”

  “Yes,” I answered slowly. “Bring it up to Homicide. Give it to Lieutenant Friedman if I’m not here.”

  “Yessir.”

  As I hung up, I saw Friedman studying my puzzled frown. “What’s it all about?” he asked.

  “Apparently,” I said slowly, “Sonny Blake was carrying a shotgun mike last night. I thought it was a gun.”

  For a moment he didn’t reply, thoughtfully staring off across the office. Then, musing, he said, “Since I arrived at least an hour before you did this morning, I thought I’d do you a favor and ask Blake a few questions.”

  “And?”

  “And I wonder what a small-time junkie hustler hoodlum is doing with a shotgun mike. Considering that he must’ve paid several hundred dollars for it.”

  “Maybe he stole it.”

  “Maybe,” Friedman answered doubtfully. For a moment he was silent. His smooth, swarthy face was utterly impassive. With his chin sunk deep into his jowl-mashed collar, he sat motionless as a buddha. I knew that mannerism; I recognized the inscrutable blankness in his dark, heavily lidded eyes. Friedman was concocting a theory.

  “Well,” I asked shortly, “are you going to tell me, or not? Flora Esterbrook Gaines is waiting.”

  Reluctantly, Friedman sighed. “Let me kick this around a little with Sonny Blake. Let’s see what I can—”

  “Come on, Pete. If there’s anything to all this—if Ann is really being followed, I want to know about it. And I want to know now. I can tell by looking at you that—” I broke off, struck by a sudden thought. Watching him closely, I asked, “Does this have anything to do with the Frazer thing? James Biggs?”

  “It could be,” he answered slowly, finally lifting somber eyes to meet mine. “When you start talking about electronic surveillance equipment and kinky behavior, I start thinking about James Biggs. And, furthermore, I—”

  My phone was ringing. I answered brusquely.

  “It’s Ann, Frank.”

  “Oh. How are you?”

  “Fine. Are there—any developments? You told me to call you, remember? I hate to bother you. Are you busy?”

  “A little,” I admitted. “Are you going right home from school today?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. I’ll call you at home. You haven’t been—worried, have you?”

  “A little,” she admitted hesitantly. “But there haven’t been any more—inciden
ts.”

  “There won’t be, either,” I answered firmly. Then, quickly, I said good-bye. I turned to Friedman. “What were you going to say,” I demanded, “about James Biggs?”

  “Look, Frank, let me see what I can—”

  “I want to know.” Saying it, I dropped my voice to a low, level note, holding his eye as I spoke. “I’m just not going to sit still for any more of this freeze-out, Pete, and you may as well know it right now. I’m sick of it. I’ve had it.”

  For a moment he didn’t reply. Then, speaking slowly and seriously, he said, “It’s the captain’s orders, Frank. You know it just as well as I do. And he got his orders from up top. Way up top.”

  “I don’t give a damn. I’m not guilty of a thing. Nothing. I know it. Captain Kreiger knows it. Everybody. And I’m just not going to—”

  “Don’t forget me,” Friedman said quietly. As he spoke, he met my eyes squarely. “I know it, too.”

  For a moment our eyes silently locked. Then, exclaiming impatiently, I banged my palm down on the desk, hard. “I’m not saying you don’t,” I muttered. “I’m just saying that I’m tired of being treated like a—an idiot child who has to be protected from himself. That’s about what it amounts to, you know. Just because the city attorney gets a wild hair up his …”

  “Listen,” Friedman said, raising a broad, beefy hand, “Go out and take a look at the Flora Esterbrook Gaines thing. Get some air. I’ll talk to Sonny Blake again, and I’ll talk to the captain. I’ll also detail a cruiser to follow Ann home from school and stake her place out. Meanwhile, cool off. You strong, silent types are all the same. Whenever you think someone’s doing something for you, there’s a big sweat. And for what? You’re—”

  “Listen, Pete, I don’t like all this crap about Ann’s being under some kind of surveillance. And if you’re honest, you’ll admit that it’s just the kind of thing that James Biggs could be involved in. So don’t—”

  “That reminds me,” he interrupted blandly. “Clara told me to tell you that you and Ann can come over for dinner on Saturday night. Clara’s sister and her husband are coming, too—from Houston. I don’t think we’ll get many laughs, because my brother-in-law is a pompous son of a bitch. But, at least, we’re having roast beef.”