“No date?” Captain Wise’s voice indicated more alarm than curiosity.
Clancy’s eyes came up to his a moment in speculation; he nodded slowly. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “you might have an idea at that.…”
He stretched one hand out for the telephone. Captain Wise stood waiting; Kaproski’s eyebrows were raised. Clancy cupped the receiver and looked slowly from one face to the other.
“Oh, pardon me,” Captain Wise said in embarrassment, and walked quickly from the room. Kaproski winked at his superior, and followed. Clancy smiled and spoke quietly into the instrument.
10
The snow increased in intensity that Wednesday night, although slowly rising temperatures indicated that the storm was wasting its time, that the muffling blanket of soft white would soon be slush, drifting in gutters, or puddles huddling in low places on damp sidewalks. At two o’clock Thursday morning, as if realizing this, the storm left the city, passing on to try its luck against the heaving ocean to the east.
One incident did occur before it passed, however. In New York Harbor a ferry pilot, blinded by the walls of obscuring white and confused by the echoing sounds of foghorns that seemed to come from every corner of the bay, turned sharply to avoid collision with a huge shape that suddenly seemed to loom out of the night before him. There was nothing before him, but his altered course led him directly into the path of an ocean liner carefully edging its way towards the Narrows. The razor-thin bow of the liner cut deep into the ferry, seeking and finding the bowels of the smaller ship. The explosion killed the engineer and seriously injured his one assistant. One of the passengers on deck was missing and presumed to have been flung into the bay and drowned. The other passengers were removed by police cutter and taken to shore.
The body of the missing passenger was recovered the following morning by a tug on its way to an assignment in Jersey under blue skies. He was clutching his hat, as if to be sure it went with him wherever he went.
Thursday–9:10 A.M.
The turnkey unlocked the cell door and swung it wide.
“Outside, big guy,” he said evenly. “I don’t know how you managed to work it, unless one of your pals was watching when they put the arm on you, but anyways somebody put up the bail money and you been sprung. Come on, let’s go.”
The dark man swaggered by the turnkey triumphantly. He paused a moment to straighten his jacket sleeves, brushed at his coat, and ran a hand through his hair, attempting to restore some order to the black, rumpled locks. He started to walk from the cell when additional losses occurred to him and he looked up.
“Hey. How about my belt? And my necktie and shoelaces?”
“Upstairs at the desk,” the turnkey said, and shook his head in disgust. “As if you don’t know. As if you ain’t been through this routine a dozen times!”
The dark man sneered at him. “I’m still walking out, ain’t I? You guys thought I was nickel-and-dime. I told you monkeys you couldn’t hold me.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” the turnkey said philosophically. “We’ll see you again. All you hard guys seem to come back.”
The man paused to flip a hand in nonchalant farewell toward the other inmates of the cell block, swaggered to the stairs and trotted up them, one hand held to his trousers to prevent them from falling. The turnkey swung the door shut after him and walked slowly back to his chair at the end of the corridor.
Upstairs the dark man turned into the first door on his left. Clancy was sitting back of his desk; Kaproski was tilted back in a chair against the wall, a broad wicked grin upon his face. The dark man stood staring at him a moment in contemplative thought; the knuckles of one huge hand were rubbing against the calloused palm of the other.
“Kaproski,” he said quietly, “I can lick you. Come the next Policemen’s Matches, I want you for my very own.”
Kaproski’s grin widened. “Hi, there, convict. You heard of the Stanislavski method? Well, last night you got a touch of the Kaproski method.”
Clancy interrupted the discussion. “Well?” He sounded a trifle impatient. “How did it go?”
Garcia shrugged. “Pretty good,” he said. “After that second guy got tossed in the can with him. Up to then, nothing.” He rubbed a large hand against the stubble of his beard and then drew a chair up to the desk as if realizing that his night in the cell entitled him to a rest. He fought down a yawn. “Old Silent Sam didn’t let go of a murmur. I tried to get palsy, but he couldn’t have cared less. That act we put on was just so much vaudeville as far as he was concerned.”
“Act?” Kaproski winked.
Clancy tapped the desk with his pencil. “Did you speak to him in English or in Spanish?”
Garcia looked surprised. “In English, like you said, Lieutenant. You told me to talk English and listen in Spanish, and I did. Only until the second guy showed up, I could have been listening in Swahili for all the good it did. He …”
“And after the second guy was put in the cell?”
“Then it got to be interesting.” Garcia grinned and scratched at his beard. “They tried to whisper, but the guy who built them cells didn’t do much for privacy. Old Silent Sam was eating the other guy out in no uncertain manner. One thing, he wasn’t supposed to have been picked up, I guess. And also, from what I heard, he and another guy was supposed to knock off a third guy, and didn’t.”
“No,” Clancy said. “They didn’t. What language did they use?”
“Platense. In Argentina they call it Porteno. It’s the Spanish they use around the Rio Plate.” He shrugged in a self-deprecating manner. “It wasn’t hard to understand.”
“And did they say anything about why they were trying to knock this other man off?”
“Old Silent Sam—I guess I ought to call him plain Sam, because he sure wasn’t silent after the other guy got tossed in the clink with him—anyways, he said something about they never had such a good cover; that it would have looked political—and they blew it. That’s what really seemed to upset him. And got one of them killed in the bargain.” He looked up. “Did you know about a guy getting killed, Lieutenant?”
“The lieutenant’s the guy who killed him,” Kaproski said. He sounded rather proud.
“Oh.” Garcia’s eyebrows went up. “Then I guess I ain’t telling you anything new.”
“Yes, you are,” Clancy said. “Was there anything else said?”
“That was about it, Lieutenant. Just about the guy getting killed and how they blew a natural. The last part seemed to burn him even more than the guy getting knocked off.” He looked across the desk curiously. “What’s it all about, Lieutenant?”
Clancy swiveled in his chair, staring out of the window. His fingers twisted his pencil back and forth. “I think it was a pretty good scheme—a private killing for some personal enemy at a time when the UN was in special session. It would really confuse the issue; everyone would think it had to be political. That’s what he meant about never having that good a cover before. They’re undoubtedly professional killers, and if they were still around, this must be the first one they blew.”
“They’re professional, all right,” Garcia said. “And they look and sound like they’ve had experience in jails a lot worse than ours, too.” He reached back to scratch a shoulder. “I can’t imagine where, but they can have them. For my dough, ours are bad enough.”
Clancy swung his chair back to face the desk. “Well, we’ll pass all the information on to the State Department. They can take it from here.” He nodded at the tired-looking man across from him. “Thanks, Garcia. You did a good job. Now you’d better go home and get some rest.”
“Oh, I slept,” Garcia said. “Not much and not well on that slab of concrete they call a bed, but I got some rest. All I need is to wash my face and shave and I’ll be all right. Anyway, I made me an appointment while I was downstairs in the cell.”
“An appointment?”
“Yeah,” Garcia said, and grinned over his shoulder at Kaproski. �
�I said that until the other guy got tossed in the cell, old Sam kept his lip buttoned, but not that young Warnicki kid on the other side. He jabbered like talking was going to be illegal next week.”
Kaproski’s chair came down with a bang. “Did he say anything about the other two who were with him on those park muggings?”
Garcia nodded; there was a happy glint in his eye. “He sure did. His cousin Cosmo, and a pal of his cousin’s called Banjo something or other. I had to remember; you guys took away my pencil.”
“We didn’t want you to stab yourself,” Kaproski explained gently. He got to his feet, moving forward. “You want me to go out and pick up those two kids, Lieutenant?”
“Hold it!” Garcia raised a hand. “I told you I got the appointment. I also got a message to deliver to them, and also if I decide to jump my bail, they’re supposed to hide me out. I got their addresses and everything.” He turned to Clancy. “It’s the least I rate, Lieutenant, after a night on that concrete mattress.”
Clancy nodded in agreement. “All right, Garcia. You pick them up. Maybe we can start clearing some of these things off the blotter.” He turned to Kaproski. “And you hang around, Kap. Stanton’ll be here in a minute and I want to see where we stand on this Willie McFadden deal. If anywhere.”
Kaproski moved back to his chair and settled into it unhappily. “Well, okay, Lieutenant, but I started on this mugging affair.”
Garcia grinned at him. “Police work is a team effort, Kaproski,” he said; his tone attempted to sound instructive. “Page one in the manual. Any time you want to get on the team, I’ll be happy to wrestle you down to the pokey and slap you around.”
“Just you remember them Policemen’s Matches,” Kaproski said direly. “You promised.”
“I engraved them on my memory last night,” Garcia said happily. “I had to because you took my pencil away for fear I’d stab myself.” He winked at Kaproski, smiled at Clancy, and walked swaggeringly from the room, pulling up on his trousers. His place was taken immediately by Stanton who came in looking backwards over his shoulder. He shrugged and came further into the room.
“Who slugged Garcia?”
“I did,” Kaproski said sourly. “Only not hard enough.”
Clancy had had enough of light talk for the moment. He motioned Stanton to a chair. “Let’s get some work done. Let’s see where we stand on this McFadden deal.”
Stanton seated himself and pulled out his notebook. He stared at it a moment and then slipped it back into his pocket. “Well, for my dough it was still a tramp. I went through the neighbors forwards and backwards, but it was just a big waste of time. They didn’t see a thing. Not Henry, or his old lady, or even the milkman.” He shrugged helplessly. “So having no place else to go, I’m back with my tramp.”
“Using what to kill him?” Clancy asked. “Our old friend the crowbar?”
“I know I started that crowbar stuff,” Stanton said, “but when you think about it, it doesn’t make sense. He didn’t leave it there, and I can’t picture a guy walking off after killing a man holding a crowbar in his hand.” He shrugged. “Maybe his fingers, all bunched up like in judo.” He paused and then warmed to his suddenly acquired theory. “Hey, you know, Lieutenant, that’s possible. And he could have smashed the old man’s nose with the side of his hand.…”
“So now we look for a tramp with a background in karate,” Clancy said sourly. “With a blood-stained hand, if he hasn’t washed it. Or rather, with a blood-stained glove, since they didn’t find any fingerprints. Who took the old man’s coin collection but didn’t like the stamps.” He shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t like it. I still have the feeling that if we knew what the weapon was, we’d be a lot closer to the right track. You just said something that makes sense—the guy walked out with the weapon. So why didn’t somebody see him?”
Kaproski spoke from his chair. “For my money Henry and his cane still look good,” he said. “Although to tell you the truth I haven’t been able to pin a thing on him. If he had a yen for dames or horses, he sure covered his tracks good. He and his old lady don’t have any dough and they don’t spend any. Still, maybe they just got tired of always being broke when they knew Willie was loaded.…”
“A little proof would help,” Clancy said.
“Here’s an idea,” Stanton suggested. “Maybe if Doc Freeman took another look at him, at that bruise on his chest, maybe he could come up with something else.”
“After the autopsy, all there must have been on Willie’s chest was some fancy hemstitching,” Kaproski said. “Anyway, he’s being buried this morning. His sister cleared him out of the morgue last night and got him to the undertakers. By now he’s probably as pretty as a picture, not to mention halfway to the cemetery.”
Clancy drummed on the desk with tense fingers. “Damn!” He shook his head, trying to find something good to say. He found it, but it didn’t satisfy him. “Sure we’ve solved the problem of Silent Sam, and Garcia will pick up those two muggers. And we found that orderly who walked out of Uptown Hospital with a pocketful of dreams. But we still have so damn much to do …!”
There was silence in the small room. Kaproski and Stanton looked at each other but neither had a suggestion to make. In the quiet that fell the sudden strident ringing of the telephone almost made them jump. Clancy reached over and picked it up.
“Yes?”
“Clancy? This is Doc Freeman.”
“Hello, Doc. What’s on your mind?”
“Clancy,” Doc Freeman said with heartfelt congratulations in his voice, “I don’t know if you’re smart or just plain lucky. Or if God kissed you because you knew what a minion was. Anyway, you were right.”
“On what?”
“You mean you don’t even remember? On that jumper—Caper Connelly.”
Clancy came to life, his fingers instantly reaching for his pad and pencil. He leaned over the desk intently, his fingers gripping the receiver tightly. “What did you find, Doc?”
“Twenty-two short. It went in the back and lodged against bone.” Doc Freeman’s voice was respectful. “I’ll do a complete autopsy if you want, Clancy, but I don’t think there’s any doubt as to what happened. Somebody shot him and the force of the bullet threw him from the platform into the path of the train.”
“We won’t need an autopsy,” Clancy said with satisfaction. “Thanks, Doc. That’s just what I needed. None of it made sense if he had jumped. Thanks again.” He hung up, swinging around to face the two men. “Forget Willie McFadden, anyway for the moment. Maybe we can get somewhere on this Caper Connelly thing.” His eyes swung between the two men. “Where did Connelly live?”
“We ought to have it at the desk up front,” Kaproski said. “We sure drug him in here and booked him often enough. I’ll go see.” He let the chair ease to the floor, stood up, and went out toward the desk. Clancy waited impatiently, frowning unseeingly at the folders on his desk, reviewing the facts in the case one by one. Stanton sat quietly, watching his superior. A moment later Kaproski returned, nodding his head in satisfaction at the slip of paper in his hand.
“Here it is,” he said, consulting the slip. “1015 Central Park West. Apartment 2206.”
Stanton’s eyebrows raised. “That address sure isn’t out of the high-rent district. That’s a pretty snazzy pad for a hackie.”
“I don’t know about that,” Kaproski said thoughtfully. “Hackies do all right for themselves nowadays. I catch one up to my sister’s in the Bronx a couple of weeks ago, and the meter runs up over four and a half bucks by the time I get there.”
Clancy came out of his reverie.
“Yeah,” he said, getting to his feet. He reached for his hat and coat. “Let’s go over and see how the other half lives.” He paused in the action of putting on his coat to review his words, and then amended them. “Or rather, how the other half used to live …”
Thursday–11:40 A.M.
Kaproski and Stanton stepped to one side in the dim shadows o
f the apartment hallway while Clancy fumbled at the lock. The third key on his master ring finally fit; he swung the door wide, allowing passage to the other two, followed them in and closed the door behind him. The drapes were drawn, leaving the room in musty gloom; Clancy reached back of him to the wall, found the switch and turned on the lights. The three men stared about them.
The room was expensively furnished with low couches that managed to look both modern and comfortable at the same time. Bookshelves of highly polished wood were bracketed to the walls with brass stanchions, and were well filled and neatly arranged. A long low hi-fi set filled the space along one wall beneath an impressionist painting depicting a Parisian scene. Rich burgundy-colored carpeting stretched from wall to wall, thick and luxurious to their feet.
Stanton surpressed a whistle. “Not bad for a hackie.”
“Or even a call-girl,” Kaproski said.
“Yeah,” Clancy said. “Well, let’s get to work. Let’s take the place apart.”
“What are we looking for, Lieutenant?”
“Pictures,” Clancy said. “Photographs. Of people. Kap, you and Stanton take the rest of the house. I’ll take this room.”
“Right.” The two men disappeared down the hallway; Clancy turned first to the cantilevered bookshelves. The lower shelf of one was a bit wider than the others, furnishing an area that could serve as a writing surface; thin slots in the back held sheafs of correspondence. Clancy pulled the first batch free and began to leaf through them, looking for photographic prints. Stanton’s voice came from the rear of the apartment, urgent.
“Lieutenant!”
Clancy dropped the correspondence and hurried down the hallway; Stanton was leaning out of the kitchen door, beckoning. Kaproski came out of the bedroom as Clancy followed Stanton back into the kitchen; Stanton was pointing to the door. A huge splinter scarred the wood in the area of the lock; the molding had been pried loose from the outside, twisted savagely in an attempt to force entrance. But above the lock the chain-guard was still intact.
“Somebody tried to break in here,” Stanton said. “He didn’t make it.”
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