Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Patrol Twenty-one, O’Leary, I’m checking a stopped Buick, a ’Fifty-one sedan. New York plates.” He repeated the numbers twice, then glanced at a numbered milepost a dozen yards or so beyond the Buick. The turnpike was marked by such mileposts from the first exit to the last, and O’Leary had stopped at No. 114. He gave that information to the dispatcher and stepped from his car with a hand resting on the butt of his revolver.

  This action was reflexive, a result or training which had been designed to make his responses almost instinctive under certain circumstances. There was seldom anything casual or whimsical about his work He had stopped behind the parked car for good reasons; he could approach it under the cover of his own lights, and he was in no danger of being run down. His report to the dispatcher was equally a matter of training and good sense; if he were fired on or if the car raced away from him, its description would go out to a hundred patrols in a matter of seconds And it was the same thing with his gun; the car looked empty, but O’Leary approached it ready for trouble. He flashed his light into the front and rear seats, noted the tweed overcoat and gray felt hat. There was no key in the ignition. He touched the hood and found it warm. Probably out of gas. He went around to take a look at the trunk.

  While O’Leary made this preliminary investigation. Sergeant Tonelli, the dispatcher at the Riverhead Station, checked the license number O’Leary had given him against the current file of stolen cars. Tonelli, a tall, spare man with graying hair and thick, white eyebrows, sat in the middle of a semicircular desk in the headquarters office. Strong overhead lights flooded the room with noonday brightness, pushing back the darkness beyond the wide, high windows. The glare of the turnpike swept past the three-storied headquarters buildings, six lanes of traffic flowing smoothly into the night. Directly behind Tonelli a door led to Captain Royce’s office. The captain was at his desk checking certain arrangements and plans which he had submitted weeks earlier to the Secret Service, The plans had been approved, and Captain Royce was presently giving them a last, careful inspection.

  The current file of stolen cars was impaled on a spike near Tonelli’s big right hand, and he flipped through the lists with automatic efficiency while continuing to monitor the reports crackling from the speaker above his switchboard. Sergeant Tonelli was responsible for approximately one third of the hundred-mile length of the turnpike. This area was designated as Headquarters North. Two subsidiary stations, Substation Central and Substation South, divided the remaining sixty-odd miles between them; their responsibility was limited to traffic, and in all other matters they look orders from headquarters and Captain Royce.

  Under Sergeant Tonelli’s direct control were eighteen patrol cars, assorted ambulances, tow trucks, fire and riot equipment. In his mind was a faithful and imaginative picture of the turnpike at this exact moment; he knew to the mile the location of each patrol car and what it was doing; he knew of the speeding Mercedes-Benz being chased ten miles north; he knew of the accident that had plugged up the slow and middle lanes beyond Interchange 10, and he knew, of course, that Dan O’Leary, Car 21, was presently investigating a Buick parked at Milepost 114.

  In addition to this routine activity, Sergeant Tonelli was considering certain areas of the problem that faced Captain Royce. The President of the United States would be riding on the turnpike tonight, entering in convoy at Interchange 5 and traveling south to the end of the pike, a distance of about fifty miles. Sergeant Tonelli would dispatch certain of his patrol cars to that area in an hour or so, and he was turning over in his mind how best to take up the slack that would be caused by their departure.

  But meanwhile he continued his check of the stolen-cars file, a check which proved futile.

  III

  TROOPER O’LEARY returned to his patrol car and called headquarters. He said to Tonelli, “Car Twenty-one. O’Leary. Looks like the Buick’s out of gas. The driver must have walked up to the Howard Johnson’s. I’ll check and see if he needs help.”

  “Proceed, Twenty-one.”

  O’Leary drove into the service area and pulled up to the gas pumps. A wiry, gray-haired attendant hurried to his car.

  O’Leary rolled down his window, “Anyone been in for a can of gas, Tom?”

  “Not a soul, Dan. Not since this morning, anyway.”

  “O.K., thanks,” O’Leary said and drove back to the parking area that flanked the restaurant. The owner of the disabled car might have slopped for something to eat, he thought. O’Leary straightened his shoulders and dark-green jacket before walking into the warm foyer of the restaurant, but both of these corrective gestures were unnecessary; his back was straight as a board, and his uniform was trig and immaculate. O’Leary was twenty-eight, solidly and powerfully built, but his stride would have pleased a drill sergeant. There was almost a touch of arrogance in the set of his head and shoulders, and he handled his body as if it were a machine he understood and trusted completely. He had short black hair and eyes as cold and hard as marbles, but there was something boyish about the seriousness of his expression and the clean, wind-scrubbed look of his skin.

  O’Leary had one fact that might help him find his missing motorist; he probably wasn’t wearing a hat or overcoat. He had left them in the car.

  But the hostess who escorted diners to tables remembered no such person. “Not in the last ten or fifteen minutes, Dan.” She glanced around the restaurant, which was divided into two large wings, one on either side of a long soda fountain and take-out counter. Both were crowded; the air was noisy with conversation and the clatter of cutlery and dishes. “Or course, he might have come in while I was seating someone.”

  He couldn’t have found a table for himself?”

  “Not when it’s crowded like this. But he might have gone to the take-out counter.”

  “Thanks. I’ll check that.”

  O’Leary stood patiently at the take-out counter while the waitress took an order for hamburgers, French Tries, milk and coffee from a thin young man who seemed vaguely embarrassed at putting her to so much trouble, He smiled nervously at O’Leary and said, “The kids are too little to bring in here. They’d play with the menus and water glasses instead of eating. My wife thinks it’s easier to feed them in the car.”

  “She probably knows best,” O’Leary said. “Anyway, eating in a car is pretty exciting for kids.”

  “Yes, they get a kick out of it.” The young man seemed relieved by O’Leary’s understanding air. When he went away with his sackful of food, O’Leary asked the waitress if she had served a man recently who wasn’t wearing a hat or overcoat.

  “Gee, I don’t think so, Dan.” She was a plain and plump young woman, with mild brown eyes. Her name was Millie. “How come he wasn’t wearing an overcoat?”

  “He left it in his car, which is out of gas about two hundred yards from here. I guess he figured he wouldn’t freeze in that time.”

  At this point it was a routine investigation, a small departure from O’Leary’s normal work of shepherding traffic along the pike, of running down speeders, of watching for drivers who seemed fatigued or erratic, of arresting hitchhikers, or assisting motorists in any and all kinds of trouble. A car out of gas, the owner not in evidence at the moment; that’s all it amounted to. He might be in a washroom, might have stopped in the service-station office to buy cigarettes or make a phone call. There was no law against his doing any of these things. But O’Leary wanted to find him and get his car back in operation. The safety of the pike depended on smoothly flowing traffic; any stalled car was dangerous.

  “Do you want a cup of coffee?” the waitress asked him.

  “No, thanks, Millie.” There would be little time for coffee breaks tonight, he knew. A threat of rain was on the cold, damp air, and that meant the hazards of thickening traffic and difficult driving conditions. Also there was the convoy; every trooper on the pike had been alerted to that responsibility.

  But at that moment there was an interruption which took O’Leary’s mind off his missin
g motorist: a dark-haired girl came up beside Millie and said breathlessly, “Has Dan told you about the glamorous date he has tonight?”

  “Now, Sheila,” O’Leary said, and ran a finger under his collar.

  “Tonight and every night,” Sheila said with an envious sigh, which O’Leary knew was about as sincere as the average speeder’s excuse and contrition. “You see, Millie,” Sheila went on, “Dan and I had a date last Tuesday, and before we went home he took me up to Leonard’s Hill. We could see the turnpike below us, the headlights blazing like long strings of diamonds in the darkness. And do you know what he told me?”

  “Now, Sheila!” O’Leary said helplessly.

  “He told me he loved the turnpike. Isn’t that lucky for him? Night after night he’s close to his one true love—a hundred miles of asphalt.”

  “It’s concrete,” O’Leary said miserably; he knew it was a token point, but he disliked inaccuracies about the turnpike, major or minor. The fact was, he did love that hundred-mile stretch of concrete. And sitting in the darkness with Sheila the other night, it had seemed natural to put the thought into words. Why was he such a fool? And why did she make him feel so helpless and vulnerable? The top of her head barely reached his shoulders, and he could swing her hundred-odd pounds into the air as easily as he would a child, but these things made no difference; he was clumsy and inept with her, driven to silly talk by something intangible and mysterious that radiated from her personality. It wasn’t mere beauty, he knew that much; as an Irishman he was also a poet, and while he appreciated her green eyes and elegantly slim body, his heart and soul responded to more than these physical attractions. There was a quality of grace and strength about her, a thread of steel and music permeating her whole being, and because of this—and because I’m a fool, he thought—he had blurted out his feelings to her that night as they sat watching the traffic on the pike.

  In his eyes the turnpike was a fascinating creation, a fabulous artery linking three mighty states, a brilliant complex of traffic rotaries, interchanges and expressways which carried almost a quarter of a million persons safely to their homes and offices each and every day of the year. Consider it, he had urged her, unaware that she was smiling at the clean, boyish line of his profile. This on their fourth date. She was not a regular waitress, but a part-timer filling in on evenings and weekends to help pay for her last year in college. Their fourth date and probably their last, he thought, for he had got on the subject of speeders.

  As a logical corollary to O’Leary’s affection for the turnpike was his dislike of those who abused its privileges; and speeders topped this list by a country mile. O’Leary always thought of them as small and shifty-eyed, although the last one he had caught was built like a professional wrestler. They regarded the turnpike as a challenge and troopers as natural enemies. They didn’t have the brains to realize that the checks and safeguards, the radar and unmarked police cars were designed solely for their protection. Instead they acted like sullen, sneaky children, behaving only as long as the parental eye was on them. O’Leary knew their works very well; he had stood dozens of limes at the scene of wrecks, with the moans of the dying in his cars, and seeing the wild patterns of ruptured steel and broken glass, and the nightmarish contortion human bodies could assume after striking a concrete abutment at seventy miles an hour.

  He fell strongly about these matters and had tried to make Sheila understand his convictions; but after completing his lecture with an interesting recital of various statistics, he had turned to find her peacefully asleep, with shadows like violets under her eyes and still the faintest trace of a smile on her lips.

  Millie had turned to wait on another customer. A woman with two children was trying to catch Sheila’s eye. O’Leary adjusted his cap. Then he said quietly, formally, “I simply wanted you to understand—”

  But she didn’t let him finish. “I understand,” she said, smiling up at him. “I couldn’t resist teasing you a little. I’m sorry.” She moved a sugar bowl, and the back of her fingers touched his hand. “It wasn’t very nice of me. I’m afraid.”

  “Next Saturday?” he said, smiling with relief and pleasure. “Same time?”

  “I’d love to.”

  IV

  THE man who had abandoned the Buick twenty minutes earlier stood in the shadows of the parking lot watching O’Leary and the dark-haired waitress. It was like a movie, he realized with pleasure, the big plate-glass window and the people behind it outlined starkly by the restaurant’s bright lighting. A silent movie, of course. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could see their shifting expressions and the smiles that came and went on their lips.

  They weren’t talking business, he thought, and took a deliberate luxurious sip from his container of hot, heavily sweetened coffee. But the big trooper had been very businesslike until the slim, dark-haired girl came along. Talking to the attendant at the gas pumps, then going into the restaurant and quizzing the hostess and the stupid-looking little blonde at the take-out counter. Very serious and efficient. The man watching through the window had seen all that. But now the trooper’s manner had changed.

  He and the girl were smiling at each other, trying to be impersonal, of course, masking their feelings; but it was nakedly apparent, disgustingly evident to the man sipping the sweet coffee in the dark parking lot. His name was Harry Bogan, and despite his irritation at their intimate, suggestive smiles, he was still grateful they weren’t talking business. The trooper’s business, that is. For it was from this slender, dark-haired girl that Bogan had bought his coffee and frankfurter. And the trooper hadn’t asked her about it; that was obvious.

  Without his overcoat Bogan was cold. But he stood motionless in the shadows until the trooper turned away from the counter after giving the girl a last quick smile and a soft salute. Then Bogan walked the length of the parking lot and moved silently into the opening between two cars. He ate his frankfurter in quick, greedy bites, savoring the tart bite of the mustard on his tongue, and dropped the empty, cradlelike container to the ground. Then he finished the coffee, tilting the cardboard cup high to let a little stream of liquefied sugar trickle into his mouth. He let the cup fall at his feet and drew a deep, satisfied breath. Sugar or honey usually made him feel grateful and at peace with himself.

  He watched the doors of the restaurant as he pulled a pair or black-leather gloves over his thick, muscular hands. His eyes were bright with excitement. He shivered with pleasure as he found a crumb of sugar on his lip. His tongue moved dexterously, then flicked the tiny sweetness into his mouth.

  Bogan did not have long to wait. Within a matter of seconds a plump, elderly man came hurrying along the line of parked cars, fumbling in his pockets for his keys. Bogan shifted his position slightly, moving into the deeper shadows until only his thick glasses glinted in the darkness, as steady and watchful as the eyes of a crouching cat.

  O’LEARY returned to his patrol car and reported to headquarters. Sergeant Tonelli said. “Captain Royce wants to talk to you, O’Leary. Hold on.”

  The captain’s voice was hard and metallic, as arresting as a pistol shot. “O’Leary, did you get a lead on the man who abandoned that Buick?”

  “No, sir. I drew blanks with the gas-pump attendants and the waitresses in the restaurant. He probably wasn’t wearing a hat or overcoat—that’s all I had to go on.”

  “Get back to that car. Don’t let anyone near it. Lieutenant Trask and the lab men are on their way. That Buick was used in a double murder in New York not more than an hour ago. Get moving, O’Leary.”

  LT. ANDY TRASK was short and muscular with shoulders that bulged impressively against his black overcoat.

  At forty-five, the lieutenant was a study in somber tones—broad, tanned face, brown eyes and black hair that only in the past year had faded to silver along the temples. As the lab technicians went to work on the car, searching trunk and glove compartments, fingerprinting and photographing, Trask gave O’Leary an account of the informa
tion that headquarters had received in a three-state alarm from New York.

  “We’ve got no description on the murderer, except that he’s big, and was wearing a light-colored tweed overcoat and a gray hat. Here’s what he did: Around six-thirty this evening he walked into a little furniture-repair-type shop on Third Avenue in Manhattan and shot and killed the owners, a young married couple named Swanson. It wasn’t a robbery: he just shot ‘em and ran out The Buick belongs to a druggist who’d parked it about a half block from the furniture shop, with the keys in the ignition. The killer was seen running from the shop by an old woman in an apartment across the street; but she’s an invalid with no phone.

  “It took her half an hour to get hold of her landlady. The landlady, like everybody else in the neighborhood, was down in the street talking about what had happened. So—half an hour later—the invalid tells her story. She described the clothes the guy was wearing and the license number of the Buick. But by that time the murderer had got through the Lincoln Tunnel and onto our pike.” Trask turned and jerked his thumb at the Buick. “Now he’s ditched this crate and more than likely is looking for another one. We’ve got to find him before somebody else gets hurt.”

  “With no description,” O’Leary said slowly. “He’s got rid of the tweed coat and gray hat. We’ve got nothing to go on. He could be off and running by now in another car.” He glanced helplessly at the streams of traffic rolling smoothly past him. “Any car, lieutenant. With a gun he could force his way into a station wagonful of college kids. Or climb in with a nice little family group where he’d look like innocent Old Uncle Fred. He could be in a truck, or in a trailer, holding a gun against some woman’s head while her husband drives him off the pike. It’s like chasing ghosts blindfolded.”